The Principality of Ostmark and Nordmark is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Markgraf Dietrich Burchard XIII with an iron fist, and renowned for its deadly medical pandemics, triple-decker prams, and punitive income tax rates. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 22.239 billion Ostmarkers are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The enormous, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government prioritizes Defense, with Spirituality and Law & Order also on the agenda, while Welfare and Social Policy receive no funds. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Heldenburg. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 67.5%.

The Ostmarker economy, worth a remarkable 1,289 trillion Marks a year, is highly specialized and led by the Uranium Mining industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Basket Weaving, and Cheese Exports. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 57,991 Marks, with the richest citizens earning 8.6 times as much as the poorest.

Takeaway food bought on the weekend now comes with fifty percent more sweat and tears, the national policy on terrorism is "forgive and forget", engineers are reinventing the wheel, and national chefs believe that you can eat anything so long as you deep fry it first. Crime, especially youth-related, is a problem, possibly because it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many regulations. Ostmark and Nordmark's national animal is the Wolf, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Paganism.

Ostmark and Nordmark is ranked 272,298^th in the world and 39^th in Western Atlantic for Most Advanced Public Education, scoring -8.94 on the Edu-tellignce® Test Score.