Difference between revisions of "Micronation"

Micronations are distinguished from imaginary countries and from other kinds of social groups (such as eco-villages, campuses, tribes, clans, and sects) by expressing a formal and persistent, even if unrecognized, claim of sovereignty over some physical territory. Micronations are also distinct from true secessionist movements; micronations' activities are almost always peaceful enough to be ignored rather than challenged by the established nations whose territory they claim.

Several micronations have issued coins, flags, postage stamps, passports, and other items. These items are rarely accepted outside their own community, but may be sold as novelties to help raise money or collected by enthusiasts.

The earliest known micronations date from the beginning of the 19th century. The advent of the Internet provided the means for people to create many new micronations, whose members are scattered all over the world and interact mostly by electronic means, often calling their nations "nomadic countries".  The differences between such Internet micronations, other kinds of social networking groups, and role-playing games are often difficult to define.

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 honors and titles of nobility.

* '''Operation Atlantis''':an early 1970s New York–based libertarian group, built a concrete-hulled ship called ''Freedom'', which they sailed to the Caribbean, intending to permanently anchor it as their territory. The ship sank in a hurricane and the project was then abandoned.

* The [[Republic of Rose Island]] was a 400 m2 platform built in 1968 in Italian national waters in the Adriatic Sea, 7 miles off the Italian town of Rimini. It is known to have issued stamps, and to have declared Esperanto to be its official language. Shortly after completion, however, it was seized and destroyed by the Italian Navy for failing to pay state taxes.

* In the late 1960s, Leicester Hemingway, brother of author Ernest Hemingway, was involved in another such project—a small timber platform in international waters off the west coast of Jamaica. This territory, consisting of an 8 foot by 30 foot barge, he called "New Atlantis". Hemingway was an honorary citizen and President; however, the structure was damaged by storms and finally pillaged by Mexican fishermen. In 1973, Hemingway was reported to have moved on from New Atlantis to promoting a 1000 square yard platform near the Bahamas. The new country was called "Tierra del Mar" (''Land of the Sea''). (Ernest Hemingway's adopted hometown of Key West was later itself part of another micronation, the [[Conch Republic]].)

 

* On April 1, 1977, bibliophile Richard Booth declared the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye an independent kingdom with himself as its monarch. The town subsequently developed a healthy tourism industry based on literary interests, and "King Richard" (whose scepter is a recycled toilet plunger) continues to award Hay-on-Wye peerages and honors to anyone prepared to pay for them.

Micronationalism shed much of its traditionally eccentric anti-establishment mantle and took on a distinctly hobbyist perspective in the mid-1990s, when the emerging popularity of the Internet made it possible to create and promote statelike entities in an entirely electronic medium with relative ease. An early example is the [[Talossa|Kingdom of Talossa]], a micronation created in 1979 by then-14-year-old Robert Ben Madison, which went online in November 1995, and was reported in the ''New York Times'' and other print media in 2000.

The activities of these types of micronations are almost exclusively limited to simulations of diplomatic activity (including the signing of "treaties" and participation in "supra-micronational" forums such as the League of Micronations) and contribution to wikis. With the introduction of the Internet, many articles on how to create micronations were made available on such wikis, which serve as a hub of online activity for micronations. The most notable wiki for the forum, MicroWiki, was created in 2005.

A number of traditional territorial micronations, including the Hutt River Province, Seborga, and Sealand, maintain websites that serve largely to promote their claims and sell merchandise.

In international law, the [[Montevideo Convention|Montevideo Convention on the Right and Duties of States]] sets down the criteria for statehood in article 1: ''The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:

The [[Sovereign Military Order of Malta]], as an independent subject of international law does not meet all the criteria for recognition as a State (however it does not claim itself a State either), but is and has been recognized as a sovereign nation for centuries.

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 [[Principality of Sealand|Sealand]] and the [[Hutt River Province Principality|Hutt River Province]], in exploring how some micronations represent grassroots political ideas, and in the creation of role-playing entities for instructional purposes.

* In 2012, a conference of micronations (PoliNation 2012) was held in London. Micronations with representatives in attendance included the [[Empire of Atlantium]], the [[Republic of Molossia]], the [[Grand Duchy of Flandrensis]], [[Royal Republic of Ladonia|Ladonia]], and the [[Empire of Austenasia]].