micronation

micronation, entity that claims to be an independent state but whose sovereignty is not recognized by the international community. Micronations are distinct from microstates, such as Liechtenstein or Vatican City, whose sovereignty over extremely small territories and populations is internationally recognized.

Micronations vary significantly in form, motivation, purpose, and seriousness. The loosely defined concept of a micronation appeared in the late 20th century to describe a growing phenomenon of small-scale pretention of sovereignty. Some micronations claim a territory, usually a piece of personal property or an uninhabitable tract of land. For instance, some micronations claim as their territory Biʾr Ṭawīl, a section of desert between Egypt and Sudan that remains unclaimed by any country. Others exist solely in concept and may possess little more than a Web site. A great number of micronations are tongue-in-cheek, such as the Conch Republic in Key West, which staged a mock secession from the United States in 1982 after the imposition of a roadblock slowed road access to the rest of the country. The roadblock was later removed, but the city continues to use the Conch Republic gimmick to bolster tourism and souvenir sales. Still others exist as a performative expression of libertarianism. Regardless of their purpose, many micronations issue citizenship along with currency, passports, or other official documents—though these documents bear no legal or diplomatic recognition.

The term micronation is sometimes applied retroactively to certain entities that claimed sovereignty before the concept of micronation came about. The Hospitallers (self-styled also as the Sovereign Order of Malta), a chivalric order founded in the decades prior to the First Crusade in the 11th century, possesses no territory but maintains a government whose sovereignty today is recognized by the Holy See and many other Roman Catholic countries and enjoys diplomatic relations with more than 100 countries. The Caribbean island of Redonda, uninhabitable and hardly accessible, was claimed by the early 20th-century novelist Matthew Phipps Shiell (M.P. Shiel) and serves as an early example of a completely fictitious claim to sovereignty. Among the most well-known examples of micronations formed prior to the term’s coinage is the Principality of Sealand, a fort in the North Sea off the coast of England. Abandoned in the 1950s by the British Royal Navy, a British man commandeered the fort in 1967, and his family has occupied it ever since.