The State of Freeman Channing is a gargantuan, safe nation, remarkable for its state-planned economy, punitive income tax rates, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, democratic population of 27.608 billion Freeman Channingians are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, moralistic, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Spirituality. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Columbia Heights. The average income tax rate is 75.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant Freeman Channingian economy, worth 462 trillion betales 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 led by the Door-to-door Insurance Sales industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing, Arms Manufacturing, and Beef-Based Agriculture. Average income is 16,741 betales, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The police force is on a recruitment drive, tourists from around the world come to visit the country's famous rainforests, military spending is on the increase, and Freeman Channing has designated Columbia Heights as its capital city. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Freeman Channing's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Freeman Channing is ranked 235,551^st in the world and 1^st in Baltimore for Largest Cheese Export Sector, scoring zero on the Mozzarella Productivity Index.