The City-State of New Lower Manhattan is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by The Director with an iron fist, and notable for its otherworldly petting zoo, compulsory military service, and complete lack of public education. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 22.201 billion Manhattanites are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

The minute, corrupt, pro-business, well-organized government, or what there is of one, is effectively ruled by the Department of Defense, with Industry and Law & Order also on the agenda, while Environment and Welfare are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Lower Manhattan. Income tax is unheard of.

The frighteningly efficient Manhattanite economy, worth an astonishing 12,130 trillion NLM credits a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Gambling, and Uranium Mining. Average income is a breathtaking 546,384 NLM credits, but there is a vast disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 5,096,042 per year while the poor average 5,190, a ratio of 981 to 1.

Royalist is the most offensive slur in the Manhattanite language, baby boys who pick up pink crayons are sent to a psychiatric ward, Manhattanites are regularly fired for looking at MyFace during their lunch breaks, and barges of dissidents are being "reeducated through water therapy" in the South Death monster Sea. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. New Lower Manhattan's national animal is the death monster, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is none.

New Lower Manhattan is ranked 182^nd in the world and 2^nd in Balder for Largest Cheese Export Sector, scoring 16,045.93 on the Mozzarella Productivity Index.