The State of Zwan-Zea is a gargantuan, pleasant nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. The hard-nosed, democratic population of 31.213 billion Zwan-Zeans enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

The tiny government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Industry, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. The average income tax rate is 9.4%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The strong Zwan-Zean economy, worth a remarkable 1,160 trillion betales a year, is led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Woodchip Exports, Book Publishing, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 37,175 betales, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.8 times as much as the poorest.

The country's famous rainforests are being bulldozed by the mining industry, the government is avowedly atheist, membership in the state-owned Church of Zwan-Zea is mandatory and all other faith organisations are banned, and Zwan-Zea has designated Capital Heights as its capital city. Crime is moderate. Zwan-Zea's national animal is the deer, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Zwan-Zea is ranked 102,453^rd in the world and 16^th in State for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 94.87 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.