The Empire of Nootstein is a colossal, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Derek Odo with an even hand, and renowned for its national health service, keen interest in outer space, and lack of airports. The compassionate population of 2.728 billion Nootsteinians 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 Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Tribolite City. The average income tax rate is 91.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Nootsteinian economy, worth 260 trillion goops a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Basket Weaving, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Tourism. Average income is 95,286 goops, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Years of counter-terrorism planning are foiled by small details, when it comes to WMDs Nootstein has declared that the only winning move is not to play, claiming that "my cousin said it was legal" is a common courtroom defense, and the government recently donated a surfboard to an impoverished family in a landlocked region. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Nootstein's national animal is the dodo, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Nootstein is ranked 7,638^th in the world and 6^th in The Looking Glass Land for Nicest Citizens, with 36.94 average smiles per day.