The Democratic Republic of Althean States is a very large, cultured nation, remarkable for its daily referendums, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, democratic population of 155 million Altheans 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, liberal, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Environment. The average income tax rate is 72.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Althean economy, worth 3.83 trillion gemberries a year, is quite specialized and led by the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Basket Weaving, Book Publishing, and Soda Sales. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 24,739 gemberries, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

When shaking hands with foreign leaders Leader wears an armoured gauntlet, building a phallus out of Minecraft blocks counts as indecent exposure, mandatory neutering has made purebred dogs a thing of the past, and economists have been named Invertebrates of the Year. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Althean States's national animal is the cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Althean States is ranked 29,765^th in the world and 543^rd in The East Pacific for Most Primitive, scoring 71.48 on the Scary Big Number Scale.