Micronation

A micronation is an entity intended to replace, resemble, mock, or exist on equal footing with recognised independent state. Some micronations are created with serious intent, while others exist as a hobby or stunt.

Micronations should not be confused with internationally recognised but geographically tiny nations such as Fiji, the Vatican, and San Marino for which the term 'microstate' is used.

Etymology

The term 'micronation' literally means "small nation". It is a neologism originating in the mid-1990s to describe the many thousands of small unrecognised state-like entities that have mostly arisen since that time. It is generally accepted that the term was invented by Robert Ben Madison. 

The term has since also come to be used retrospectively to refer to earlier unrecognised entities, some of which date to as far back as the 19th century. Supporters of micronations use the term "macronation" for any UN-recognized sovereign nation-state.

Definition

Micronations generally have a number of common features, although these may vary widely. They may have a structure similar to established sovereign states, including territorial claims, government institutions, official symbols and citizens, albeit on a much smaller scale. Micronations are often quite small, in both their claimed territory and claimed populations — although there are some exceptions to this rule, with different micronations having different methods of citizenship. Micronations may also issue formal instruments such as postage stamps, coins, banknotes and passports, and bestow honours and titles of nobility.

A criterion which distinguishes micronations from imaginary countries, eco-villages, campuses, tribes, clans, sects, and residential community associations, is that these entities do not usually seek to be recognised as sovereign.

The Montevideo Convention was one attempt to create a legal definition distinguishing between states and non-states. Some micronations meet this definition, while some do not, and others reject the Convention altogether.

The academic study of micronations and microstates is known as micropatrology, and the hobby of establishing and operating micronations is known as micronationalism.

Micronations have been known to be termed as a 'cybernation', 'fantasy country', 'model country (or nation)', 'new country project', 'pseudonation', 'counternation', 'ephemeral state', 'online nation' and many other variants.

Micronations may also be classified, although many different systems are used across the micronational world. One of the most commonly used systems is the Boodlesmyth-Tallini System of Cclassification.

History and evolution of micronationalism

Origins

The Principality of Sealand is one of the more well-known micronations in the world

The 17th century saw the rise to prominence of a world order dominated by the concept of the nation-state, following the Treaty of Westphalia. However, the earliest recognisable micronations can be dated to the 18th century. Most were founded by eccentric adventurers or business speculators, and several were remarkably successful. These include the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, ruled by the Clunies-Ross family, and Sarawak, ruled by the "White Rajas" of the Brooke family. Both were independent personal fiefdoms in all but name, and survived until well into the 20th century. 

Less successful were the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia (1860-1862) in southern Chile and Argentina, and the Kingdom of Sedang (1888-1890) in French Indochina. The oldest extant micronation to arise in modern times is the Kingdom of Redonda, founded in 1865 in the Caribbean. It failed to establish itself as a sovereign nation-state, but has nonetheless managed to survive into the present day as a unique literary foundation with its own king and aristocracy — although it is not without its controversies; there are presently at least four competing claimants to the Redondan throne.

M. C. Harman, owner of the UK island of Lundy in the early decades of the 20th century, issued private coinage and postage stamps for local use.  Although the island was ruled as a virtual fiefdom, its owner never claimed to be independent of the United Kingdom. Thus, Lundy can at best be described as a precursor to later territorial micronations.

1960-1979

The 1960s and 1970s saw a 'micronational renaissance', with the foundation of a number of territorial micronations, some of which still persist to this day. The first of these, the Principality of Sealand, was founded in 1967 on an abandoned World War II gun platform in the North Sea, and has endured a military coup, court rulings and rough weather throughout its existence. Others were based on schemes requiring the construction of artificial islands, but only two are known to have risen above sea level.

The Republic of Rose Island was a 400 sq metre platform built in international waters off the Italian town of Rimini, in the Adriatic Sea in 1968. It is reported to have issued stamps, minted currency, and declared Esperanto to be its official language. Shortly after completion, however, it was destroyed by the Italian Navy.

The Republic of Minerva was set up in 1972 as a libertarian new country project by Nevada businessman Michael Oliver. Oliver's group conducted dredging operations at the Minerva Reefs, a shoal located in the Pacific Ocean south of Fiji. They succeeded in creating a small artificial island, but their efforts at securing international recognition met with little success, and near-neighbour Tonga sent a military force to the area and annexed it.

On 1 April 1977, bibliophile Richard Booth, declared the UK town of Hay-on-Wye an "independent republic" with himself as its king. The town has subsequently developed a healthy tourism industry based literary interests, and "King Richard" (whose sceptre consists of a recycled toilet plunger) continues to dole out Hay-on-Wye peerages and honours to anyone prepared to pay for them. The official website for Hay-on-Wye, however, admits that the declaration of independence, along with the later claim to have annexed the USA and renaming it the "US of Hay" were all merely publicity stunts.

Present day

Micronationalism has since evolved mainly into hobbies, and with younger participants. Although no all-compassing authority on micronations exists, nor any comprehensive listing, it is known that a number of widely diverse communities and sectors persist throughout the micronational world, often on the internet.

The internet provided micronationalism with a new outlet, and the number of entities able to be termed as micronations skyrocketed the beginning of the twenty-first century as a result. Exact figures may never be known, but it is thought that many thousands of micronations now exist throughout the world. However, with this new outlet of the internet came a large anomaly between micronationalists and micronations. Before the advent of micronationalism on the internet, micronations were few and far between, and were able to coax many hundreds of people in their citizenry. At present, most micronations are 'One-man micronations' or 'Egostans', with only one or two people being citizens of the micronation.

The majority are based in English-speaking countries, but a significant minority arose elsewhere in other countries as well.

Categories of micronations

In the present day, the following categories are generally accepted as being standard:

1. Social, economic, or political simulations.

1. Historical simulations.

1. Exercises in personal entertainment or self-aggrandisement.

1. Exercises in fantasy, creative fiction or artistic expression.

1. Vehicles for the promotion of an agenda.

1. Entities created for fraudulent purposes.

1. Historical anomalies and aspirant states.

1. Exercises in historical revisionism.

1. New-country projects.

1. Seasteading.

Social, economic or political simulations

Micronations of the first type tend to be fairly serious in outlook, involve sometimes significant numbers of relatively mature participants, and often engage in highly sophisticated, structured activities that emulate the operations of real-world nations. A few examples of these include:

• Freetown Christiania - a semi-legal district in Copenhagen, Denmark, founded in September 1971, where there are lax laws on drugs and squatting.

• Talossa - an old political simulation with its own invented language, founded in December 1979. It was started by Ben Madison as the Kingdom of Talossa, but today is actually the name of three micronations — two called the Kingdom of Talossa (the Madison and Woolley kingdoms), and one called the Republic of Talossa.

• Holy Empire of Reunion (Sacro Império de Reunião) — a Brazilian micronation founded in August 1997 as an online constitutional monarchy simulation. It claims several dozen members around the world.

Historical simulations

These micronations also tend to be fairly serious, and involve significant numbers of people interested in recreating the past, especially the Roman or Mediaeval past, and living it in a vicarious way. Examples of these include:

• Nova Roma, not to be confused with the historical Nova Roma, is a group created in 1998 with a worldwide membership of over 1000 that has minted its own coins, and which engages in real life Roman-themed re-enactmennts.

Exercises in personal entertainment or self-aggrandisement

With literally thousands in existence, micronations of this type are by far the most common. They are ephemeral, and tend to be Internet-based, rarely surviving more than a few months, although there are notable exceptions. They generally involve a handful of people, and are concerned primarily with arrogating to their founders the outward symbols of statehood. The use of grand-sounding titles, awards, honours, and heraldic symbols derived from European feudal traditions, and the conduct of 'wars' with other micronations, are common manifestations of their activities. Examples include:

• The Aerican Empire, a Monty Pythonesque micronation founded in May 1987, and known for its tongue-in-cheek interplanetary land claims, smiley-faced flag and a range of national holidays that includes "Topin Wagglegammon" amongst others.

• Republic of Molossia, a Nevada desert-based micronation, founded in September 1999.

• The Kingdom of Lovely, founded in January 2005, is an attempt by King Danny I (Danny Wallace) to create an internet nation based in his flat in London.

• The Duchy of Bohemia, founded in 2007, which operates as a micronation and government in exile within the borders of the USA, claiming succession to the monarchy of the former kingdom of Bohemia, following the abdication of the last of the Holy Roman Emperors.

Exercises in fantasy, creative fiction or artistic expression

Micronations of this type include stand-alone artistic projects, deliberate exercises in creative online and offline fiction, artistic creations, and even popular films. Examples include:

• San Serriffe, an April Fool's Day hoax created by the British newspaper The Guardian, in its April 1, 1977 edition. The fictional island nation was described in an elaborate seven-page supplement and has been revisited by the newspaper several times.

• Lizbekistan, a popular Internet-based project conceived sometime in 1987 by Australian artist Liz Stirling.

• Ladonia, a nation founded by the Swedish artist and historian Lars Vilks in June 1996. Ladonia claims a piece of land at a peninsula in southern Sweden as its territory.

Vehicles for the promotion of an agenda

These types of micronations are typically associated with a political or social reform agenda. Some are maintained as media and public relations exercises. Examples of this type include:

• Akhzivland is a self-declared and officially tolerated "independent republic" established in the early 1950s by Israeli hippy and former sailor Eli Avivi on the Mediterranean beach at Akhziv in Israel. In 1970, Eli Avivi declared Akhzivland an independent nation.

• The Conch Republic, which began in April 1982 as a tongue-in-cheek economic protest by residents and business owners in the Florida Keys.

• The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, founded in June 2004 on the uninhabited Coral Sea Islands off the coast of Queensland, in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognise same-sex marriage.

Entities created for fraudulent purposes

A number of micronations have been established for fraudulent purposes, by seeking to link questionable or illegal financial actions with seemingly legitimate nations. Some examples of these are:

• The Dominion of Melchizedek - Created in 1986 by a father-and-son team of confidence tricksters named Evan David Pedley and Mark Logan Pedley (the latter also known as David Korem) to sell fraudulent banking licenses. Melchizedek, which is supposedly an "ecclesiastical constitutional sovereignty", claims a number of territories, and a large slab of Antarctica. According to John Shockey, former special assistant, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, in an address to the 4th International Financial Fraud Convention in London on 27 May 1999: "The Dominion of Melchizedek is a fraud, a major fraud, and not a legitimate sovereign entity. Persons associated with the Dominion of Melchizedek have been indicted and convicted of a variety of crimes."

• The Kingdom of EnenKio - Claims Wake Atoll in the Marshall Islands belonging to the US Minor Outlying Islands, has been condemned for selling passports and diplomatic papers by the governments of the Marshall Islands and of the United States. On 23 April 1998, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Marshall Islands issued an official Circular Note, denouncing representatives of both "EnenKio" and "Melchizedek" for making fraudulent representations.

• The United Kingdom of Atlantis - operating a website from October 2003 to October 2005, claimed to be located in the Pacific Ocean near Australia. The "kingdom" published maps of its alleged location; however, the islands shown did not exist. Atlantis' leader, the self-styled Sheikh Yakub Al-Sheikh Ibrahim, was wanted in the US for various crimes including fraud and money laundering. At one point, Atlantis sent a delegation to the legitimate state of Palau to offer a low interest loan of $100 million.

Historical anomalies and aspirant states

A small number of micronations are founded with genuine aspirations to be sovereign states. Many are based on historical anomalies or eccentric interpretations of law, and tend to be easily confused with established states. These types of micronations are usually located in small (usually disputed) territorial enclaves, generate limited economic activity founded on tourism, philatelic and numismatic sales, and are at best tolerated or at worst ignored by other nations. This category includes:

• The Principality of Sealand, a "sovereign principality" established in September 1967, and located on a WWII-era anti-aircraft platform in the North Sea in what were international waters at the time of its foundation. These waters are now subject to claims by both Sealand and the United Kingdom. Sealand is home to HavenCo, a colocation site that advertises that customer data will be secure "against any legal action."

• The Hutt River Province Principality, a farm in Western Australia which claims to have seceded from Australia in April 1970, to become an independent principality with a worldwide citizenship count of 13,000.

Exercises in historical revisionism

• Kommissarische Reichsregierung (KRR, English: Provisional Imperial Government) is a label for multiple groups and individuals in Germany and elsewhere who assert that the German Empire (or, occasionally, Prussia) continues to exist in its pre-World War II borders and that they are its government or government in exile. The original Kommissarische Reichsregierung was founded by Wolfgang Gerhard Guenter Ebel in 1985 in West Berlin. Currently there are some 60 persons or organisations associated with operating competing KRRs.

New-country projects

New-country projects are attempts to found completely new nation-states. They typically involve plans to construct artificial islands (few of which are ever realised), and a large percentage have embraced or purported to embrace libertarian or democratic principles. Examples include:

• The Republic of Minerva, another libertarian project that succeeded in building a small man-made island on the Minerva Reefs south of Fiji in 1971, declared its independence in January 1972, and then was ejected by troops from Tonga, who later formally annexed it on 15 June 1972. In November 2005, Fiji put forward a complaint with the International Seabed Authority claiming ownership of Minerva Reefs.

• The Principality of Freedonia, a libertarian project established as a "hypothetical project" by a group of US teenagers in 1992, before becoming a new country project in 1997, tried to lease territory from the Sultan of Awdal in Somaliland in December 2000-January 2001. Resulting public dissatisfaction led to rioting, and the reported death of a Somali.

• The Seasteading Institute, founded by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman on 15 April 2008, is an organisation formed to facilitate the establishment of autonomous, mobile communities on seaborne platforms operating in international waters. The project picked up mainstream exposure in 2008 after having been brought to the attention of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who invested $500,000 in the institute.

Seasteading

Seasteading is a lifestyle of making the oceans, or at least water-borne craft, one's home. Most seasteads historically have been sailing craft, whether perhaps demonstrated by the Chinese Junk, modified canoes of Oceania, or even the famous Pirates of Libertaria. In modern times in the west the cruising sailboat has begun to be used in the same manner. The term seasteading is of uncertain origin, used at least as early as the turn of the century by Uffa Fox, and others; many feel that catamaran designer and historian James Wharram and his designs represent ideal seasteads. More recently, American sailor and ecological philosopher Jerome FitzGerald has been a leading and effective proponent of seasteading, mostly teaching the concept through the environmental/sailing organization "The Oar Club". The Seasteader's Institute in Hilo, Hawaii offers classes, boat-building opportunities, education in forage foods, diving, and other aspects of a Seasteading lifestyle.

Some theoretical seasteads are floating platforms which could be used to create sovereign micronations, or otherwise serve the ends of ocean colonization. The concept is introduced in a paper by Wayne Gramlich, and later in a book by Gramlich, Patri Friedman and Andy House, which is available for free online. Their research aims at a more practical approach to developing micronations, based on currently available technology and a pragmatic approach to financial aspects.

The authors argue that seasteading has the potential to drastically lower the barrier to entry to the governing industry. This allows for more experimentation and innovation with varying social, political, and economic systems. Potential business opportunities include data havens, offshore aquaculture, and casinos, as well as the gamut of typical business endeavors.

Academic attention

There has been a small but growing amount of attention paid to the micronation phenomenon in recent years. Most interest in academic circles has been concerned with studying the apparently anomalous legal situations affecting such entities as Sealand and the Hutt River Province, in exploring how some micronations represent grassroots political ideas, and in the creation of role-playing entities for instructional purposes.

In 2000, Professor Fabrice O'Driscoll, of the Aix-Marseille University, published a book about micronations: Ils ne siègent pas à l'ONU ("They are not in the United Nations"), with more than 300 pages dedicated to the subject.

Several recent publications have dealt with the subject of particular historic micronations, including Republic of Indian Stream (University Press), by Dartmouth College geographer Daniel Doan, The Land that Never Was, about Gregor MacGregor, and the Principality of Poyais, by David Sinclair (ISBN 0-7553-1080-2).

Popular Press

In May 2000, an article in the New York Times entitled "Utopian Rulers, and Spoofs, Stake Out Territory Online" brought the phenomenon to a wider audience for the first time. Similar articles were published by newspapers such as the French Liberation, the Italian La Repubblica, the Greek "Ta Nea", by O Estado de São Paulo in Brazil, and Portugal's Visão at around the same time.

The Democratic Empire of Sunda, which claims to be the Government of the Kingdom of Sunda (an ancient kingdom, in present-day Indonesia) in exile in Switzerland, made media headlines when two so-called princesses, Lamia Roro Wiranatadikusumah Siliwangi Al Misri, 21, and Fathia Reza Wiranatadikusumah Siliwangi Al Misiri, 23, were detained by Malaysian authorities at the border with Brunei, on 13 July 2007, and are charged for entering the country without a valid pass.

Conferences, summits, exhibitions and meetings

In August 2003 a Summit of Micronations took place in Helsinki at Finlandia Hall, the site of the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). The summit was attended by delegations such as the Principality of Sealand, Neue Slowenische Kunst|NSK, Ladonia, the Transnational Republic, and by scholars from various academic institutions.

From 7 November through 17 December 2004, the Reg Vardy Gallery at the University of Sunderland hosted an exhibition on the subject of micronational group identity and symbolism. The exhibition focused on numismatic, philatelic and vexillological artefacts, as well as other symbols and instruments created and used by a number of micronations from the 1950s through to the present day. A summit of micronations conducted as part of this exhibition was attended by representatives of Sealand, Elgaland-Vargaland, New Utopia, Atlantium, Frestonia and Fusa. The exhibition was reprised at the Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York City from 24 June–29 July of the following year. Another exhibition about micronations opened at Paris' Palais de Tokyo in early 2007.

The Sunderland summit was later featured in a 5-part BBC light entertainment television series called "How to Start Your Own Country" presented by Danny Wallace. The series told the story of Wallace's experience of founding a micronation, Lovely, located in his London flat. It screened in the UK in August 2005. Similar programs have also aired on television networks in other parts of Europe.

On 9 September 2006, The Guardian newspaper reported that the travel guide company Lonely Planet had published the world's first travel guide devoted to micronations, the Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations (ISBN 1741047307).

External links

• Footnotes to History — Comprehensive list of failed secessionist states, alternative governments and other historical oddities.

• The Imperial Collection — Comprehensive catalogue of stamps, coins and banknotes issued by secessionist states.

• Web Directory of micronations

• J.S.G. Boggs's site — the money artist.

• A New Land - Thoughts and ideas on creating a micronation.

References

• E. S. Strauss: How to start your own country ISBN 0915179016, ISBN 1893626156

• It's Good to Be King Wired 8.03 March 2000

• Welcome to Sealand. Now Bugger Off. Wired 8.07 July 2000

• How to Start Your Own Country

• How to Start Your Own Country in Four Easy Steps

• Diplomatically-challenged coins