The United Socialist States of Urtla is a very large, orderly nation, notable for its multi-spousal wedding ceremonies, frequent executions, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, cynical population of 333 million Urtlans 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 enormous, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Welfare, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Atopia. The average income tax rate is 74.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Urtlan economy, worth 10.3 trillion Urtla rubles a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is fairly diversified, is led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Information Technology, and Book Publishing. Average income is 31,061 Urtla rubles, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Many politicians are serving jail time for minor drug offenses, the military's newest anti-tank strategy is throwing a landmine like a frisbee, cyber-crime and tin-foil hat sales are both increasing at record rates, and the nation's Medal of Honour can be found as a free toy in breakfast cereal. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Urtla's national animal is the Parakeet, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Urtla is ranked 260,608^th in the world and 63^rd in Estalcia for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 27.09 on the Bus Surprisal Index.