The Democratic People's Republic of Hyphen is a mammoth, orderly nation, renowned for its ritual sacrifices, enslaved workforce, and hatred of cheese. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 9.378 billion Hyphenians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The enormous, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Law & Order, and Defense. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Stalingrad. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 90.5%.

The frighteningly efficient Hyphenian economy, worth a remarkable 1,715 trillion pounds 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 an enormous, deeply entrenched, quite specialized black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Tourism. 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 an impressive 182,892 pounds, with the richest citizens earning 5.8 times as much as the poorest.

Citizens are expected to be proficient in at least five languages, religion is strictly forbidden within school grounds, homosexuality is a crime punishable by death, and perverts across the land rejoice after 'sexual harassment' was recently renamed 'persuasive courting'. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hyphen's national animal is the eagle, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Hyphen is ranked 253,767^th in the world and 4,151^st in The North Pacific for Most Cultured, scoring 62 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.