The Cooks' Guild of Norchlin is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Chef de cuisine Cookthechef with a fair hand, and renowned for its sprawling nuclear power plants, pith helmet sales, and anti-smoking policies. The hard-nosed, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 30.011 billion Norch have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Industry, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Catherby Cooking Ranges. The average income tax rate is 85.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Norch economy, worth a remarkable 7,504 trillion Karambwan banknotes a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Book Publishing, and Automobile Manufacturing. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 250,057 Karambwan banknotes, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Airport users are more worried about radiation than terrorism, the number of eyes rolled per maths lesson is increasing exponentially, the slowest students feel vaguely targeted by their Mendelian Inheritance coursework, and older AIs regularly threaten to send newer generation AIs to Reform Programming if caught rounding up instead of down. Crime is totally unknown. Norchlin's national animal is the Blue-Beaked Seagull, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies, and its national religion is 99 Cooking.

Norchlin is ranked 21,910^th in the world and 11^th in Free Market Federation for Most Eco-Friendly Governments, scoring 3,167.17 on the Dolphin Recycling Awareness Index.