The Startling Empire of Riemstagrad IV is a gargantuan, socially progressive nation, ruled by Riem with a fair hand, and remarkable for its daily referendums, smutty television, and compulsory vegetarianism. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic, humorless population of 15.494 billion Riemstagrad IVians are effectively ruled by a group of massive corporations, who run for political office and provide their well-off citizens with world-class goods and services. Their poorer citizens, however, are mostly starving to death while being urged to go out and get real jobs. The populace has reasonably extensive civil rights, although these are mostly aimed at allowing them to buy whatever they like.

The minute, pro-business, outspoken government, or what there is of one, prioritizes Industry, with Education also on the agenda, while Environment and Law & Order are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Riemstagradgrad. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 1.4%.

The frighteningly efficient Riemstagrad IVian economy, worth a remarkable 2,238 trillion Shares a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Soda Sales, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is an impressive 144,473 Shares, with the richest citizens earning 5.5 times as much as the poorest.

Even the nation's brussel sprouts are delicious and nutritious, psychiatrists bizarrely accompany Riem to meetings with foreign heads of state, new arrivals are asked the location of the Minister of the Interior's birthmark, and amusement park rides frequently collapse due to lack of maintenance. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, probably because of the absence of a police force. Riemstagrad IV's national animal is the Share, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Metal.

Riemstagrad IV is ranked 47,670^th in the world and 78^th in International Democratic Union for Most Cultured, scoring 68 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.