The Liberated Dáxlamic Provinces of Old Sparrow is a titanic, genial nation, ruled by Lýderis Bradford John with an iron fist, and renowned for its ubiquitous missile silos, absence of drug laws, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, cynical, devout population of 10.546 billion Old Sparrowians are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Dáxlamic Sparrow. The average income tax rate is 80.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The Old Sparrowian economy, worth 587 trillion Dáxlamic Marks a year, is quite specialized and led by the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Basket Weaving, and Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 55,718 Dáxlamic Marks, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Murderers frequently escape punishment by claiming they were protecting their honour, the seventh son of a seventh son is fated to be a millionaire, women who walk into the ladies' changing room are accused of being Peeping Toms, and evasive politicians don't fail to strongly commit to not committing to a course of non-inaction. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Old Sparrow's national animal is the Bay Mongoose, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Dáxlam.

Old Sparrow is ranked 8,150^th in the world and 29^th in Declansburg for Largest Welfare Programs, scoring 5,069.6 on the Safety Net Mesh Density Rating.