The State of Balmerino is a gargantuan, orderly nation, ruled by the Governor with an iron fist, and notable for its irreverence towards religion and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 17.499 billion Balmerinoans enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, which, where they exist at all, are populist shams for a dictatorship government that has no intention of ever giving up power.

The minute, liberal, pro-business government, or what there is of one, juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Westminster. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 5.0%.

The thriving Balmerinoan economy, worth a remarkable 1,369 trillion betales a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Beef-Based Agriculture industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Automobile Manufacturing, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is 78,277 betales, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 277,077 per year while the poor average 15,967, a ratio of 17.4 to 1.

Balmerino has designated Westminster as its capital city and The Governor has just been declared ruler of Balmerino in an international press conference. Crime is a serious problem, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Balmerino's national animal is the deer.

Balmerino is ranked 263,250^th in the world and 6^th in The Congo for Lowest Crime Rates, with 43.44 law-abiding acts per hour.