The Lovely and Joyous State of Snipland is a massive, efficient nation, ruled by Great Leader Snippet with an iron fist, and remarkable for its keen interest in outer space, vat-grown people, and infamous sell-swords. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 2.679 billion Sniplandians are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The large, corrupt, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Snipcoard. The average income tax rate is 88.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Sniplandian economy, worth 387 trillion Snips 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 large, well-organized, quite specialized black market in Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, Information Technology, and Woodchip Exports. 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 an impressive 144,656 Snips, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Diners regard burgers made from mechanically reclaimed cow protein as "proper meat", the people consider response to rudeness to be an acceptable casus belli, naturists are jailed regularly for indecent exposure, and UFO sightings are listed daily in the morning news. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Snipland's national animal is the Snipets, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is snipism.

Snipland is ranked 190,947^th in the world and 4,123^rd in The North Pacific for Largest Automobile Manufacturing Sector, scoring -1.41 on the Henry Ford Productivity Index.