The Borderlands of Belistien is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Yuri Serbinaski IV with an iron fist, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, frequent executions, and irreverence towards religion. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 23.193 billion Belistienians 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 government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Belistien City. The average income tax rate is 96.9%.

The frighteningly efficient Belistienian economy, worth a remarkable 3,029 trillion Gold Beliens 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 led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Tourism. Average income is an impressive 130,639 Gold Beliens, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Police drones follow every suspected Peeping Tom, there's a literal nanny state for the legions of children taken by social services, cinemas play art-house movies to ever-shrinking audiences as film critics rule the industry, and the country has unplugged its internet connection to prevent subversive content. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Belistien's national animal is the Dread Hawk, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Belistien is ranked 288,024^th in the world and 84^th in A Taco Paradise for Largest Furniture Restoration Industry, scoring -10.68 on the Spitz-Pollish Productivity Index.