The People's Republic of Halinstan is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its compulsory military service, suspicion of poets, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 681 million Halinstanis are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The large, corrupt, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Brogograd. The average income tax rate is 83.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The thriving Halinstanian economy, worth 75.0 trillion Markoes a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is led by the Beef-Based Agriculture industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Cheese Exports, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. Average income is an impressive 110,146 Markoes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Hundreds of subterranean tunnels are being built as part of "Project Morlock", the government is rumored to hire body doubles whose full-time jobs are to cry at public events, there's no cure or sympathy for the common cold, and the "war on terror" doesn't seem to be making Halinstanis any less frightened. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Halinstan's national animal is the Wolverine, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Halinstan is ranked 319,426^th in the world and 14^th in Solidarity for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 20.89 on the Bus Surprisal Index.