A micronation is an entity whose members claim that they belong to an independent nation or sovereign state, but which lacks legal recognition by world governments or major international organizations. Most are geographically very small, but range in size from less than square meter to more than a million square km (Westarctica). They are usually the outgrowth of a single individual.
The Principality of Sealand is an unrecognized micronation that claims HM Fort Roughs, an offshore platform in the North Sea approximately 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) off the coast of Suffolk, as its territory. Roughs Tower is a Maunsell Sea Fort that was built by the British in international waters during World War II. Since 1967, the decommissioned Roughs Tower has been occupied and claimed as a sovereign state by the family and associates of Paddy Roy Bates. Bates seized Roughs Tower from a group of pirate radio broadcasters in 1967 with the intention of setting up his own station there. Sealand was invaded by mercenaries in 1978, but was able to repel the attack.
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other British Commonwealth countries.
The Principality of Hutt River, often referred to by its former name, the Hutt River Province, was a micronation in Australia. The principality claimed to be an independent sovereign state, founded on 21 April 1970. It was dissolved on 3 August 2020.
Freedonia, Fredonia or Fredon is the name given to several fictional countries. The name was used for some aspects of the United States in the 19th century, and later popularized by the 1933 Marx Brothers film Duck Soup where it was the name of the fictional country in which the film was set. Over time, the word has come to have a more generic meaning, anything from a noun describing a plausible yet fictional country, to an adjective ("Freedonian") used to characterize a place like the Freedonia of Duck Soup. Because the Marx Brothers' film had so many qualities—autocracy, diminutiveness, and obscurity, to name but a few—a place can be described as "Freedonian" for having any one of these qualities.
The Principality of Seborga is an unrecognised micronation that claims a 14 km2 area located in the northwestern Italian Province of Imperia in Liguria, near the French border, and about 35 kilometres (22 mi) from Monaco. The principality is coextensive with the town of Seborga; assertions of sovereignty were instigated in 1963 by a local campaigner based on unproven claims about territorial settlements made by the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars.
The Empire of Atlantium is a micronation and secular, pluralist progressive lobby group based in New South Wales, Australia.
How To Start Your Own Country is a six-part BBC Television documentary comedy series aired between August and September 2005. The show was presented by British writer/comedian Danny Wallace and followed his quest to start his own country in his flat in Bow, London. The micronation he created was eventually named "Lovely".
The Principality of Sealand, a micronation founded on a former World War II fort in the North Sea, has issued a number of coins and stamps for collectors. These coins and stamps are denominated in "Sealand dollars" (SX$). Sealand coins can be considered souvenirs only or "rounds" since they do not circulate anywhere and are not accepted as currency by any nation.
The Aerican Empire is a micronation founded in May 1987, which has no sovereign territory of its own and has never been recognized by any other sovereign state as existing. Its name stems from the term "American Empire". In 2000 The New York Times described its website as "one of the more imaginative" micronation sites.
Talossa, also known as the Kingdom of Talossa, is one of the earliest micronations—founded in 1979 by then-14-year-old Robert Ben Madison of Milwaukee and at first confined to his bedroom; he adopted the name after discovering that the word means "inside the house" in Finnish. Among the first such projects still maintained, it has kept up a web presence since 1995. Its internet and media exposure since the late 1990s contributed to the appearance of other subsequent internet micronations.
The Kingdom of Elleore is a micronation located on the island of Elleore in the Roskilde Fjord, north of Roskilde on the Danish island of Zealand.
Micronations are ephemeral, self-proclaimed entities that claim to be independent sovereign states, but which are not acknowledged as such by any recognised sovereign state, or by any supranational organisation. The constant reiteration of the flag as a symbol of a something that exists by the entity that it symbolises confirms the validity of the flag as an officially sanctioned and/or definitive symbol of an entity; therefore, there has been a close association between vexillology/vexillogic imagination in creating visual symbols that appear to legitimise micronational claims.
Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations is a gazetteer published by Lonely Planet. It has also been published under the name Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Self-Proclaimed Nations. It was written by John Ryan, George Dunford and Simon Sellars.
The Dominion of British West Florida is a separatist micronation founded in 2005 "on an eccentric interpretation of actual historic events" and based in the Gulf Coast of the United States. It claims the territory of the 18th-century colony of West Florida, which includes land split between parts of the US states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.
Akhzivland is a micronation between Nahariya and the Lebanese border on the Israeli west coast, founded by Eli Avivi in 1971. The micronation is promoted by the Israel Ministry of Tourism even though its legal status remains ambiguous.
Patrick "Paddy" Roy Bates, also known as Prince Roy of Sealand, was a British pirate radio broadcaster and micronationalist, who founded the Principality of Sealand. He was a major in the British Army during World War II.
The Principality of Snake Hill, also known simply as Snake Hill is a self-proclaimed sovereign state, or micronation located in Australia. Snake Hill has roughly hundreds of citizens, and claims land the size of Monaco. Snake Hill claimed independence on 2 September 2003, and Princess Paula claimed it was a right to secede, citing "The U.S., as you well know, seceded from England in 1776, It’s a remedial right, a last resort."
The romanat or român was a proposed currency of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, a precursor of the Romanian nation state. It was subdivided into 10 decimi or bani and 100 sutimi or bănișori.
