The Dictatorship of Illness is a huge, orderly nation, notable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, feral children, and irreverence towards religion. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 721 million Illnessians are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, corrupt, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Welfare, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 74.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Illnessian economy, worth 17.8 trillion Diseases 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 a slick, highly efficient, highly specialized black market in Trout Farming, Uranium Mining, and Furniture Restoration. 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 24,733 Diseases, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The bureaucracy's scale makes the trees wail, children who believe in the tooth fairy are frequently shipped off to Bigtopia, poaching has been on the rise after animals from the nation's zoos were released into the wild, and the long arm of the law possesses a rather slow hand. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Illness's national animal is the Rat, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Illness is ranked 297,319^th in the world and 3,834^th in the South Pacific for Most Compassionate Citizens, scoring 30.24 on the Kitten Softness Rating.