A new nation is emerging and many of you will want a visa to do business there. While you won’t suffer jet lag making the trip, you may experience culture shock when you get there.

The new country, right here in America, is Richistan, identified in a book of that name by Robert Frank, senior special writer at the Wall Street Journal. Richistan is populated by the new rich – the really, really rich. It is growing, although perhaps not as fast as a year ago.

The 7.5 million “mere affluent” U.S. households with a net worth between $1 million and $10 million barely qualify to live in Richistan.

To truly be at home there takes a net worth starting at $10 million, which lets in about 1.4 million U.S. households. They, in turn, aspire to live like the Upper Richistanis, the thousand or so households with $100 million-plus net worth.

The middle and upper Richistanis set the tone in their new country. “The pressures from both the top and the bottom, from richer Richistanis and the mere affluent, have forced Richistanis to create an entirely new class of hyperluxury goods,” Frank explains.

“The companies that succeed in grabbing the Richistani market will likely be among the biggest winners in the coming years, with higher growth rates…[and] fatter profits,” predicts the author. “With the population of rich people expanding so rapidly, wealthy consumers have gone from being a niche market to a broad consumer base.”

Defining Characteristics

To do business in Richistan, you need to understand the culture. Here is a field guide.

They love conspicuous consumption. “The huge numbers of Richistanis are furiously racheting up the price of status,” writes Frank. “Richistanis are also spending to outrun the hordes of Richistani wannabes.” This means they are building 30,000-sq.-ft. houses with walk-in refrigerators bigger than a Manhattan apartment. A small closet might be 400 square feet.

Opulence is their favored interior design style. Unlike Old Money, they don’t go for the understated look.

They are not sipping piña coladas on the beach every day. Just the opposite: “The idle rich are being replaced by the workaholic wealthy,” Frank observes. Many of them made their money as entrepreneurs, and often start new businesses out of boredom. Or they become serial builders and remodelers, addicted to projects and consumed by them.