The Community of Cidade Vella is a massive, genial nation, ruled by Amancio o Vello with a fair hand, and remarkable for its free-roaming dinosaurs, smutty television, and multi-spousal wedding ceremonies. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 4.585 billion Cidadáns Vellos are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The large, liberal, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Rúa da Amargura. The average income tax rate is 99.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Cidadán Vello economy, worth 997 trillion maravedís 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 mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism and Book Publishing. Average income is an amazing 217,608 maravedís, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Animal liberationists receive government funding to break into animal research labs, people reciting Shakespeare have become a common sight, nature magazines featuring stick insects on their covers are sometimes mistaken for fashion magazines, and scavengers with burlap sacks and shovels skulk around graveyards. Crime is totally unknown. Cidade Vella's national animal is the worm, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Atheism.

Cidade Vella is ranked 2,209^th in the world and 25^th in The Leftist Assembly for Most Beautiful Environments, with 3,506.2 pounds of wildlife per square mile.