The Federal Republic of Novochernobog is a massive, pleasant nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, public floggings, and prohibition of alcohol. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 1.591 billion Ursines 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 relatively small, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Welfare, and Law & Order. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 11.0%.

The Ursine economy, worth 92.1 trillion Ursine chervonets a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Gambling industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Basket Weaving, and Woodchip Exports. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 57,872 Ursine chervonets, with the richest citizens earning 5.6 times as much as the poorest.

Bureaucrats close new businesses for not complying with the Penguin Packaging Index, exterminators swarm Ursine homes, political clichés like "band-aid solutions" and "adrenaline shots to the economy" are headed for the dumpster, and children seem to be getting better at lying these days. Crime is moderate, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Novochernobog's national animal is the Ursus, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

Novochernobog is ranked 259,665^th in the world and 37^th in Ursus for Largest Cheese Export Sector, scoring -3.79 on the Mozzarella Productivity Index.