The Republic of January 3rd is a very large, safe nation, remarkable for its ban on automobiles, ubiquitous missile silos, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic, devout population of 294 million January 3rdians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The medium-sized, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Welfare, and Defense. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 37.9%.

The sizeable but inefficient January 3rdian economy, worth 17.6 trillion Cards 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, broadly diversified black market in Beef-Based Agriculture, Tourism, Woodchip Exports, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. 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 60,001 Cards, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 181,427 per year while the poor average 15,448, a ratio of 11.7 to 1.

What's in your genes matters more than what's in your jeans, members of the government all have oddly similar anecdotes about their childhoods, small children are learning a lot of new words from a teacher with Tourette Syndrome, and January 3rd has designated January 3rd City as its capital city. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. January 3rd's national animal is the Card.

January 3rd is ranked 263,241^st in the world and 87^th in Calendar for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 26.86 on the Bus Surprisal Index.