The Democratic Republic of Cortlandt Manor is a titanic, genial nation, ruled by President Boxer with an even hand, and remarkable for its daily referendums, punitive income tax rates, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, cheerful population of 24.489 billion Cortlandians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, socially-minded government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Westchester. The average income tax rate is 98.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Cortlandt Manorian economy, worth a remarkable 3,103 trillion Spennies a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology and Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an impressive 126,732 Spennies, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Pre-takeoff checks last longer than the flights themselves, advertisements read like science journal articles complete with extensive references, private pharmacies close down as medicinal drugs are given away freely by the government, and every new building project has to undergo a five-year environmental impact study before it can go ahead. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Cortlandt Manor's national animal is the Dog, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Judaism.

Cortlandt Manor is ranked 7,274^th in the world and 69^th in Europeia for Most Developed, scoring 92.52 on the Human Development Index.