The Cookie-Obsessed Empire of Quingston is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Andrew Belicaden with an even hand, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, frequent executions, and keen interest in outer space. The hard-working, humorless, devout population of 5.272 billion Quingstanians enjoy extensive civil freedoms, particularly in social issues, while business tends to be more regulated.

The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Environment, Law & Order, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Clearshore. The average income tax rate is 69.4%.

The frighteningly efficient Quingstanian economy, worth 328 trillion Quingstonas a year, is extremely specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 62,341 Quingstonas, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.5 times as much as the poorest.

Plain-clothes police officers follow Dàguó tourists everywhere they go, farmers are complaining that the buzzing and the sparks from the nearby MagRail are blighting their crops, in musicals everybody's a little bit racist, and visitors often mistake the toiletplex at music festivals for the main stage. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Quingston's national animal is the jaguar, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Quingston is ranked 286,006^th in the world and 1^st in The West European for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -15.46 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.