The United Kingdom of Joyful River Spirits is a colossal, efficient nation, renowned for its ritual sacrifices, ubiquitous missile silos, and lack of airports. The hard-nosed, humorless, devout population of 5.203 billion Joyful River Spirits are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, corrupt government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Industry, and Defense. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Riverbank. The average income tax rate is 84.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Spiritual economy, worth 680 trillion Sodalite Balls 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 an enormous, deeply entrenched, quite specialized black market in Beef-Based Agriculture, Retail, Uranium Mining, 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 130,703 Sodalite Balls, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.7 times as much as the poorest.

Political candidates recite daily pledges of loyalty to their chosen party, male friends are often accompanied by a female relative in order to prove their 'straightness', postcards from Spiritual driving test centres are popular souvenirs, and parties that are too noisy are broken up to prevent disturbing wildlife. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Joyful River Spirits's national animal is the Beaver, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Joyful River Spirits is ranked 242,870^th in the world and 300^th in Forest for Most Beautiful Environments, with 300.31 pounds of wildlife per square mile.