The Republic of Herbert Island is a massive, efficient nation, ruled by Herbert Winstanley with a fair hand, and renowned for its anti-smoking policies, sprawling nuclear power plants, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate, democratic population of 4.743 billion Herbert Islandians 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 government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Moribund. The average income tax rate is 87.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Herbert Islandian economy, worth 695 trillion Gummibearshums a year, is quite specialized and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Book Publishing, and Retail. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an impressive 146,669 Gummibearshums, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Vital intelligence-gathering activities are put on hold as agents return home for seduction training and advanced poker instruction, access to the woods is only granted to those who bring a small shrubbery, government-run screening operations remove embryos with severe genetic disorders, and heartfelt sentiments are mercilessly marketed by a million-Gummibearshum treacle machine. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Herbert Island's national animal is the Aardvark, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Herbert Island is ranked 239,331^st in the world and 7,802^nd in the South Pacific for Most Primitive, scoring -474.37 on the Scary Big Number Scale.