The People's Socialist Republic of The Achterhoek is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Chairman Daan with an iron fist, and renowned for its avant-garde cinema, punitive income tax rates, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, cynical, cheerful population of 14.277 billion Achterhoekers 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 government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Lochem. The average income tax rate is 98.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Achterhoekian economy, worth a remarkable 2,738 trillion People's Guilders a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Tourism and Book Publishing. Average income is an impressive 191,806 People's Guilders, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Relations with Dàguó have warmed from frosty to chilly, foreign leaders are advising that Chairman Daan's letters must have gotten lost in the mail, droves of former desperados are applying to join the border police, and Catherine Gratwick's campaign support is considered seminal. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. The Achterhoek's national animal is the Deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

The Achterhoek is ranked 2,496^th in the world and 48^th in The Communist Bloc for Lowest Crime Rates, with 136.5 law-abiding acts per hour.