The Christmas Polar Bear of Bilabao is a gargantuan, genial nation, ruled by Klanta Saused with an iron fist, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, public floggings, and keen interest in outer space. The compassionate, cynical, cheerful, devout population of 37.812 billion Bilabaons are ruled with an iron fist by the socialist government, which grants its people the freedom to do whatever they like so long as it doesn't involve getting richer than anybody else or challenging the government.

The large, socially-minded government is dominated by the Department of Education, with Spirituality and Environment also on the agenda, while Defense and Industry aren't funded at all. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of North Pole. The average income tax rate is 36.2%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant Bilabaoan economy, worth 439 trillion icicles a year, is quite specialized and led by the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Trout Farming, Retail, and Basket Weaving. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 11,628 icicles, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Klanta Saused has just been declared ruler of Bilabao in an international press conference, the government has declared its commitment to multilateralism, the nation's atlases tend to go out of date every few weeks, and the acceptance of acupuncture and other alternative therapies has needled the scientific community. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Bilabao's national animal is the polar bear, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Bilabao is ranked 124,893^rd in the world and 7^th in The Arctic for Largest Retail Industry, scoring 890.57 on the Shrinkwrap Consignment Productivity Index.