start small
How difficult is it to create a new country?
The world is full of micronations, which the Encyclopædia Britannica defines as “entities that claim to be independent but whose sovereignty is not recognized by the international community.”
There is an international agreement that a geographical entity can be called a true country. that much Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Obligations of StatesThe article, approved by 198 signatories and adopted by the League of Nations in 1933, says that any entity that meets four criteria: population, territory, government and the ability to negotiate with other states can be considered sovereign under international law. .
According to the convention, there is no need for a country to be recognized by another country. All you need is the ability to do so.
How can a modern-day aspiring monarch follow suit without setting up a harem or trading slaves?
It turns out there was a recipe. Hire a good PR agent and create a backstory for TV that includes incredible miracles, military victories, and direct descendants of notable deities. Add a little anti-establishment vigor, an outrageous sense of humor, and a bucket of renegade bravado, and you're on your way.
According to World Population Review, there are approximately 100 to 400 micronations worldwide.
So why not give it a try?
idea of nation
Some people already come from noble families and want to move up the royal totem pole. This was the case with Nancy Valerie Brooke, the third daughter of Charles Vyner Brooke.
Nancy was the third and last of the White Rajahs of Sarawak. Her news reporters called her “Sarawak's Siren” and “Princess Baba”. She dreamed of purchasing an island in the Dutch colony in the East Indies (now Indonesia).
She decided to name it “Babaland,” meaning “every man will be Rajah.” Philip Eade quoted Nancy's words in his book “Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters.” “We will have a democracy with courts and things. Perhaps it will be an aristocratic democracy. “I don’t think it’s fun to be a country without uniforms or headbands.”
But what choice exists for the commoner?
Around the same time that Hare settled herself and her concubines in Maluka, in 1811 an American whaler named Jonathan Lambert declared himself sovereign and sole owner of a group of islands he named the Islands of Refreshment.
His kingdom's idyllic name is not due to the island's swimming pools and piña coladas, but because the island was a transit point for restocking supplies used by American cruisers sent to prey on British merchant ships.
The island, now named Tristan da Cunha, is part of the British Overseas Territories of St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. This archipelago forms the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world and lies roughly halfway between Argentina and South Africa.
kingdom in the desert
Aspiring emperors might heed the advice of Grand Admiral Colonel Kevin Baugh, founder and president of the Molossian Republic. His house and garden near Reno, Nevada, USA constitute American territory. It has a staff of 27 and boasts a flag, stamps, currency, customs, radio show, post office, and more.
“First, use your imagination,” Baugh said in a 2015 interview with National Public Radio. “It’s not necessarily a fantasy, but you have to think outside the box when starting your own country. Find out what they do in other countries. You know, learn a little bit about history. How nations began and eventually ceased, and what makes a nation,” he said.
He suggested building on what we already know. “Your flag should represent you and your country. It has to represent your coat of arms and everything,” he said.
In 2015, a Czech named Vit Jedlicka declared the Free Republic of Liberland on seven square kilometers of land, territory not claimed by Serbia or Croatia. Because there is no post office in the Riverland, citizenship applications are only accepted by email.
form a micronation
Indian gurus embraced the dream of nation-building.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of transcendental meditation and teacher of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, founded the World Peace Nation in Iowa, USA, in 2000.
In 2023, Paraguay's Minister of Agriculture, Arnoldo Chamorro, was fired for signing a 'declaration' with representatives of micronations supporting Cailassa's accession to the United Nations as a 'sovereign and independent state'.
that much Kailasa's fictional politics It was created and led by self-proclaimed guru Nithyananda Paramashivam, who is wanted in the Indian state of Karnataka on rape charges.
The delegation attended two UN committees and signed cultural partnerships and sister city agreements with more than 30 cities in the United States. Two members of the U.S. Congress even gave Kailasa special recognition.
Make royal dreams come true
Many little girls play as princesses, but seven-year-old Emily Heaton's father decided to make her a real princess.
Jeremiah Heaton, from Virginia, USA, searched online for unclaimed land. He found Bir Tawil. An arid area on the Sudan-Egypt border that no one wants.
In 2014, he obtained permission from Egyptian authorities to travel to the desert rock 20 times larger than Manhattan, where he planted a blue flag with a crown and four stars and named it the Kingdom of North Sudan.
“I built my country out of love for my daughter,” he said.
Another nation-building role model is Lawrence W. Swan, a biologist specializing in the ecology of the Himalayan region. Swan once “walked out” of the United States and Redwood City, California, protesting an order to replace his “perfectly adequate and efficient septic tank” with a nearby sewer pipe at considerable cost.
state of nothing
Swan anointed himself the “Raja” of his own autonomous indigenous nation and named it the Kingdom of Kuch Nahai, a Hindi name meaning “absolutely nothing” or the state of absolute nothingness.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported: “Fortunately [Swan] They yielded the government's right to eminent domain and continued to pay taxes. But this did not stop him from providing Cooch Nahai with everything a small country needed. Cooch Nahai printed its own stamps each year. There was a public holiday on June 21st, the summer solstice festival. National symbol, the extinct dodo bird; ‘Grave of the Unknown Frog’ Memorial; and the Great Wall of Cooch Nahai, a ‘monument of world travel and conquest.’”
The antithesis of Alexander Hare's misogynistic kingdom is a hard-line misanthropic otherworldly kingdom, a resort/micronation in the Czech Republic with its own currency, passport, police force and courts. The goal is “to secure as many male creatures under the unrestricted control of a superior female over as much territory as possible.” To become a citizen, “a woman must own at least one male slave.”
Maybe I'm just arrogant and eccentric enough to start my own country.
But it's still a fun exercise. So proudly sing the national anthem (I'm “Jumpin' Jack Flash”), admire the rafflesia, salute the national flag (golf club rampant), offer fresh marigolds to our nation's guardian deity (Ganesha), and tip your hat. please. Establish a national unit of measurement (smoot) to the first secondary god (Dinanukht) and breed a national animal (tardigrade).
Final step: Print business cards featuring the Royal Coat of Arms and Her Majesty's discreet HM.