#56 What are micronations?

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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

Ever wanted to start your own country? It’s been done before, and it’s actually easier than you think.

Over the past 60 years, people have started dozens of “micronations” around the world for all sorts of bizarre reasons.

Micronations are self-declared, often very small, entities that claim to be independent sovereign states but are not recognized as such by established governments or international organizations.

Just because their countries aren’t recognized as legitimate doesn’t mean that the creators of these micronations aren’t having a grand old time:

How To Start Your Own Country

In order to start a micronation, you need to do one of two things:

• claim an uninhabited piece of land (like an island or a chunk of Antarctica)

• secede from your current country and stake out an independent space for your micronation (like your house or farm)

Or, as in the case of Sealand (see below), just set up on an offshore platform off the coast of England:

Micronations can take many forms, including:

• WWII-era sea forts (like Sealand)

• Farms

• Islands

• Unclaimed parts of the Arctic

• Virtual micronations that only exist online

The creation of a micronation often involves:

• the establishment of a government

• the writing of a constitution

• the adoption of national symbols such as flags and anthems

• sometimes even the issuance of currency and passports

While micronation-issued currencies and passports are not recognized by normal nations, they play a key part in the internal mythology of micronations.

Who starts micronations?

Typically, micronations are started by eccentric individuals (or small groups of people) with a desire for independence — and, usually, a grievance against their government.

In 1965, British WWII veteran Paddy Roy Bates took over a Sea Fort off the coast of England that was set up during WWII to establish a pirate radio station.

The British government took his station off the air the following year, so he moved to another Sea Fort that was outside the U.K.'s territorial waters.

The British government then passed a law banning people from broadcasting from marine structures, prompting Bates to declare independence and establish the Principality of Sealand.

Bates, who died in 2012, eventually issued a constitution, flag, and national anthem for Sealand.

He told an interviewer during the 1980s:

“I might die young or I might die old, but I will never die of boredom.”

Australian farmer Leonard Casley declared that his farm in Western Australia was an independent province in 1970 in response to wheat quotas imposed by the Aussie government.

He began to identify himself as Prince Leonard and named his new micronation the Hutt River Province (later the Principality of Hutt River).

Casley issued the Hutt River Dollar for the first time in 1976.

In 2008, a French man who claimed to be an ambassador of Hutt River was charged with fraud in the United Arab Emirates over claims that he was issuing travel documents and selling land in Hutt River to UAE residents. Casley claimed that he had no affiliation with the Hutt River government.

Other micronations take themselves less seriously and function primarily as community organizations, whether they be online or in real life.

Kevin Baugh, who pays taxes on his Republic of Molossia in Nevada and does not seek to secede from the United States, summed up the perspective of most micronationalists when he said:

ART OF THE DAY

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Yours,
Dan