The State of Ville Marie is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by High Commissioner with an even hand, and notable for its spontaneously combusting cars. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 39.658 billion Ville Marieans enjoy some of the most opulent lifestyles in the region, unless they are unemployed or working-class, in which case they are variously starving to death or crippled by easily preventable diseases.

The large, liberal, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 29.4%.

The thriving Ville Mariean economy, worth a remarkable 1,244 trillion betales a year, is quite specialized and led by the Book Publishing industry, with significant contributions from Trout Farming, Gambling, and Information Technology. Average income is 31,373 betales, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 162,704 per year while the poor average 3,277, a ratio of 49.6 to 1.

The latest Harry Potter book is a bestseller, Ville Marie's children are widely acknowledged as the most foul-mouthed in the region, Ville Marie has designated Capital Heights as its capital city, and High Commissioner has just been declared ruler of Ville Marie in an international press conference. Crime is a problem. Ville Marie's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Ville Marie is ranked 255,799^th in the world and 435^th in Ancient Lands for Lowest Crime Rates, with 48.88 law-abiding acts per hour.