The Federation of Zko is a mid-sized, safe nation, renowned for its keen interest in outer space, compulsory military service, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, democratic population of 99 million Zkoans love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The large, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 60.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Zkoan economy, worth 3.05 trillion ⋖$s a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is dominated by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing, Tourism, and Trout Farming. Average income is 30,772 ⋖$s, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Urban parents tell their children that the family car went to a farm upstate, fixing attendance at women's matches is a matter of "when they go low, we go high... funding", government workers are more efficient and more unhappy than ever, and the canal flows through the land like a twisty turny thing. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Zko's national animal is the Zkoan Ape, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Zko is ranked 276,259^th in the world and 155^th in The Order of the Grey Wardens for Largest Manufacturing Sector, scoring 2,431.15 on the Gooback-Jerbs Productivity Index.