The Most Serene Republic of Upper Phoenix is a fledgling, genial nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape and compulsory military service. The compassionate, hard-working, democratic population of 5 million Upper Phoenixians enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people's right to vote held sacrosanct.

The relatively small, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Welfare. The average income tax rate is 10.4%.

The Upper Phoenixian economy, worth 282 billion Phoenix coins a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Woodchip Exports industry, with major contributions from Uranium Mining, Book Publishing, and Information Technology. Average income is 56,402 Phoenix coins, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 4.9 times as much as the poorest.

The country's famous rainforests are being bulldozed by the mining industry, organ donation is compulsory, banana distribution among collective farm workers is an important topic in public discourse, and scientists regularly clone human beings for research purposes. Crime, especially youth-related, is almost non-existent. Upper Phoenix's national animal is the Phoenix , which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

Upper Phoenix is ranked 96,812^th in the world and 1,245^th in the West Pacific for Most Cultured, scoring 67 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.