The Dictatorship of Ardenstania is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its avant-garde cinema, punitive income tax rates, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate population of 437 million Ardenstanians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ardeneath. The average income tax rate is 79.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Ardenstanian economy, worth 26.0 trillion Ardoes a year, is highly specialized and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Arms Manufacturing. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 59,434 Ardoes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Toxic smog is dismissed as the populace just "letting off steam", visiting dignitaries make excuses to leave functions early and head to the nearest pub, all government facilities are built in the subterranean citadel of Ardeneath, and the Ardenstanian Babysitters Club has proven to be a huge relief to stressed-out parents across the nation. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ardenstania's national animal is the Steller's Sea Eagle, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Ardenstania is ranked 204,313^th in the world and 7,611^th in The North Pacific for Most Primitive, scoring -117.3 on the Scary Big Number Scale.