The Joyeux Archipelago of Portmanteau is a colossal, socially progressive nation, ruled by Queen Passeʻencore with a fair hand, and notable for its smutty television, devotion to social welfare, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 5.28 billion Manteaus are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, liberal, socially-minded, outspoken morass — juggles the competing demands of Administration, Environment, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Port Manteau. The average income tax rate is 99.7%.

The frighteningly efficient Manteau economy, worth 917 trillion cowrie shells a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Tourism and Basket Weaving. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an impressive 173,802 cowrie shells, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Research into 'designer babies' is banned, pawn shop reality shows dominate basic cable, student athletes gaze forlornly at abandoned Insular Pangolinball fields, and intellectual snobbery has the cognoscenti sneering at anyone who doesn't have an opinion on the semiological drift of Umberto Eco's works. Crime is totally unknown. Portmanteau's national animal is the Insular Pangolin, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Pau Hana Time.

Portmanteau is ranked 287,006^th in the world and 344^th in Refugia for Smartest Citizens, with 0.22 quips per hour.