The Federal Republic of Ripsylvania is a huge, cultured nation, ruled by Parliament with a fair hand, and notable for its daily referendums, frequent executions, and compulsory military service. The compassionate, democratic population of 877 million Ripsylvanians love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Breitenfeld. The average income tax rate is 77.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Ripsylvanian economy, worth 60.8 trillion scritches a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Retail, and Arms Manufacturing. Average income is 69,364 scritches, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Science centers and state of the art laboratories are ubiquitous, life expectancies inside correctional facilities vastly exceed the national average, the "war on terror" doesn't seem to be making Ripsylvanians any less frightened, and octogenarian swimsuit models insist that they've still got it. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ripsylvania's national animal is the Wooly Scragglemuffin, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Ripsylvania is ranked 181,281^st in the world and 6,858^th in The East Pacific for Most Pro-Market, scoring -77 on the Rand Index.