The Republic of Riverdene is a small, safe nation, notable for its state-planned economy, suspicion of poets, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate population of 40 million Riverdeneans are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The large, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 46.9%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but underdeveloped Riverdenean economy, worth 1.19 trillion denes a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, fairly diversified black market in Information Technology, Book Publishing, Arms Manufacturing, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 29,774 denes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Weird kids who eat bugs are breaking the law, 50% of adverts on children's television are for clothes made of cotton wool, everybody's got wood thanks to Leader, and the nation's only university is the School of Hard Knocks. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Riverdene's national animal is the Badger, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Riverdene is ranked 228,304^th in the world and 135^th in 8th International for Highest Food Quality, scoring 9.44 on the Meeshlin-Starr Index.