The City of Alpine is a gargantuan, genial nation, ruled by Gavin Newsom with an even hand, and remarkable for its frequent executions, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate, hard-working population of 10.41 billion Alpineans 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, Environment, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Alpine. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 74.5%.

The frighteningly efficient Alpinean economy, worth a remarkable 1,605 trillion dollars a year, is quite specialized and led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Retail, and Book Publishing. Average income is an impressive 154,230 dollars, with the richest citizens earning 8.0 times as much as the poorest.

'Mountain Doobie' is widely regarded as the nation's favourite drink, volunteers are signing up to take arms against an incursion of flesh-eating zombies (Alpine has found 1 easter egg), undergrads find their professors' mushroom experiments less psychedelic than expected, and commemorative mugs remembering last year's Black Friday Crockery Riots are a best seller this year. Crime is totally unknown. Alpine's national animal is the coyote, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Paganism.

Alpine is ranked 64,438^th in the world and 1^st in Alpine for Lowest Crime Rates, with 70.96 law-abiding acts per hour.