The Most Serene Republic of Nishima-ren is a small, safe nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, zero percent divorce rate, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, devout population of 36 million Nishimen are prohibited from doing almost everything except voting, which they do timidly and conservatively.

The medium-sized, moralistic, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Spirituality, and Education. The average income tax rate is 34.8%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but underdeveloped Nishima-renian economy, worth 1.40 trillion Yen a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is fairly diversified, is led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Trout Farming. Average income is 38,954 Yen, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Parking's carefree without parking car fees, three-year-olds have tantrums because they don't want to be drainage technicians when they grow up, a popular saying is "don't do the crime if you can't smash the lime(stone)", and slow dancing is made trickier when Auntie Edna insists on standing between the couple's arms. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Nishima-ren's national animal is the Nekomata, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Nishima-ren is ranked 72,843^rd in the world and 54^th in Philosophers for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 105.79 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.