The People's Republic of Vogelfluss is a huge, safe nation, notable for its compulsory military service, punitive income tax rates, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate population of 493 million Vogelflussers are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Bergovid. The average income tax rate is 86.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The Vogelflussian economy, worth 28.3 trillion Fluss Marks a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Beef-Based Agriculture, Automobile Manufacturing, and Furniture Restoration. Average income is 57,324 Fluss Marks, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Glancing at the car radio display while driving is treated as attempted homicide, trade policy consists of ganging up on the new guy, there's a literal nanny state for the legions of children taken by social services, and the government is paving paradises to put up parking lots. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Vogelfluss's national animal is the Southern lapwig, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Vogelfluss is ranked 23,780^th in the world and 499^th in The Communist Bloc for Most Advanced Public Education, scoring 7,329.89 on the Edu-tellignce® Test Score.