The Federal Republic of Ripsylvania is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its museums and concert halls, daily referendums, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, democratic population of 729 million Ripsylvanians 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 enormous government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Breitenfeld. The average income tax rate is 74.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The Ripsylvanian economy, worth 46.8 trillion scritches a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, and Retail. Average income is 64,144 scritches, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Nude art is becoming wildly popular, the government is making attempts at curtailing the flood of spam emails with little progress, the government baselessly accuses foreign dignitaries of being assassins, and warfare increasingly resembles a video game. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ripsylvania's national animal is the Wooly Scragglemuffin, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Ripsylvania is ranked 159,164^th in the world and 6,644^th in The East Pacific for Largest Mining Sector, scoring -4.47 on the Blue Sky Asbestos Index.