Micronation

When you were a kid, you may have drawn a line in the sandbox with a stick and shouted, "From here on, this is my country!" A micronation is a bit like that game of making a country, only grown-ups play it for real, and play it seriously.

The most famous example is the Principality of Sealand, off the east coast of England. During World War II, the British military used a concrete fortress at sea and later abandoned it. A retired British army major moved in with his family and declared it an independent country. They set up their own flag and anthem, issued their own passports and commemorative coins, and raised money by selling noble titles such as baron.

Australia had its own case: the Principality of Hutt River. A farmer who was angry about the government's limits on wheat production declared his farm a country. He refused to pay taxes, made his own stamps and currency, and ran the place as a tourist attraction for decades. The principality dissolved itself in 2020.

So a micronation is a place where someone slips through a gap in the existing law, or plants a flag on private land, and claims to be an independent sovereign state. Around the world there are hundreds of these self-declared countries, from simple pranks and art projects to political protests aimed at a government.

Because of the word "micro" in the name, it's easy to mix micronations up with truly small countries such as Vatican City or Monaco. On the surface they share a small territory and a small population. Legally, though, they are worlds apart.

Countries like Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino, and Nauru may be small, but they are officially recognized sovereign states (microstates). Monaco, San Marino, and Nauru are members of the United Nations. Vatican City is represented by the Holy See, which holds permanent observer status at the UN. These states exchange ambassadors through formal diplomatic relations with other countries, and international law protects them.

A micronation is different. No matter how many presidents or kings it names, or how many laws it writes, no legitimate government in the world recognizes it as a country. From the standpoint of constitutions and legal systems, a micronation is just a piece of the territory of the country it was originally part of, or ordinary real estate owned by a person.

If a serious crime happens inside a micronation, the police and courts of the real country it belongs to step in and punish it, not the micronation's own court. And a passport the micronation issued itself is nothing but a toy piece of paper at an airport immigration desk.

To be a bit more precise, international law requires a country to meet specific conditions. According to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, a state needs a permanent population, a clearly defined territory, a government that exercises authority, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Some micronations look for legal gaps and search for land that no country claims, known as terra nullius (land belonging to no one), and build a country there. A well-known example is Liberland, set up by libertarians on abandoned land in a border dispute area between Serbia and Croatia.

But imitating a territory and a government convincingly does not make a country by itself. In international law, one view holds that a state exists once it meets the conditions, while another holds that it needs recognition from other states. In reality, though, without diplomatic recognition from the international community, the way existing sovereign states accept a new country as independent, it is hard to act as a country.

Without diplomatic recognition, a micronation can't join international organizations, and it can't trade formally or sign treaties. In the end, a micronation is closer to a special cultural phenomenon: it borrows the shape of a country to express one person's ideal world, or to ask a playful question about real politics.