The Borderlands of Coalfield is a colossal, genial nation, ruled by Steamus Smoke-Burn with a fair hand, and remarkable for its sprawling nuclear power plants, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, democratic population of 3.639 billion Coalfieldians 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 large government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Coal Pit. The average income tax rate is 69.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Coalfieldian economy, worth 312 trillion lumps 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 Beef-Based Agriculture industry, with major contributions from Retail, Book Publishing, and Information Technology. Average income is 86,012 lumps, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

"Steamus Smoke-Burn got your tongue?" has become a popular idiom, convicts released after being found "wrongfully imprisoned" are surprisingly chill about the whole thing, blind dates reemerge as a necessary evil in the quest for love, and punting clubs and posh accents have been added to the national curriculum. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Coalfield's national animal is the canary, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Coalfield is ranked 234,987^th in the world and 3,494^th in The North Pacific for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -6.24 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.