The Red Garden of Old Hope is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by The Shadow with a fair hand, and renowned for its disturbing lack of elderly people, strictly enforced bedtime, and zero percent divorce rate. The hard-nosed, democratic, humorless, devout population of 19.381 billion Old Hopeans enjoy great social freedoms and frequent elections, where the majority of the populace regularly votes to increase its benefits at the expense of various hapless minorities.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded, outspoken government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Administration, Environment, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Old Hope City. The average income tax rate is 82.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The very strong Old Hopean economy, worth a remarkable 1,210 trillion Feathers a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a large, well-organized, extremely specialized black market in Cheese 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. State-owned companies are the norm. Average income is 62,475 Feathers, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Class clowns are frequently listed among the most dangerous criminals in the nation, it's believed that women's brains will overheat if they think for themselves, criminals are really screwed, and religious officials are furious after discovering that things made of stone do not burn well at the stake. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Old Hope's national animal is the Phoenix, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Old Hope is ranked 315,063^rd in the world and 6,154^th in the Rejected Realms for Largest Basket Weaving Sector, scoring -12.9 on the Hickory Productivity Index.