The State of Portage is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its punitive income tax rates, restrictive gun laws, and devotion to social welfare. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 11.276 billion Portageans are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Welfare, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Westminster. The average income tax rate is 76.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant Portagean economy, worth 132 trillion betales a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, highly specialized black market in Trout Farming, Woodchip Exports, and Automobile Manufacturing. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 11,711 betales, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Elections have been outlawed, organ donation is compulsory, thieves are flogged in public for their crimes, and Portage has designated Westminster as its capital city. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Portage's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Portage is ranked 121,483^rd in the world and 5^th in British North America for Most Primitive, scoring -36.06 on the Scary Big Number Scale.