More micronations!

[Tyr]

Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra, San Marino, the Vatican, to a lesser extent Luxembourg...Oh, and the British crown dependencies. They're all pretty damn cool places aren't they?
The way they represent Europe's past but in the modern day.
Sure, they all have perfectly valid reasons for getting to be the way they are (which I won't go into- if you don't know them you should read up though, interesting stuff) however still. They just don't belong in the modern world do they?

So...How could we get more of them?
Any good micronation candidates?
I don't mean obvious things like 'Keep the world in the dark ages' so everyone is in little principalities. How could we feasibly have more fragments of these past times survive into our modern times of centralised nation states?

Any ideas?
Maybe some more border irregularities like neutral Moresnet? Though that doesn't really count as a nation.
Perhaps another state or two in Germany that escapes unification?-this one in particular would be very interesting to see!
How about something eastern European? Now that would be particularly cool. To have a real Latveria (sans super villain) would be very cool.

Let the coolness flow!

 

[Thande]

There's that little republic in the south of France that technically never stopped being independent. Also the kingdom off Sicily. Both of which still exist, just never getting the recognition of the "real" microstates.

 

[Susano]

There's that little republic in the south of France that technically never stopped being independent.

If you think of the same I do, actually they only got mock-independant in the 60s or 70s, IIRC.

Also the kingdom off Sicily.

Sardinia. But that ended in the 60s or 70s when an US base was established there.

Oh, and that one "principality" in Italy, something with... Sergovia or so? But thats artifical and only mock-independant, too, just like that "Republic" in France.

Now, the most efficient way to have more micronations is probably to have more small HRE nations survive Mediation and then become/remain independant, like Liechtenstein and Luxemburg...

 

[False Dmitri]

Don't forget some of the island states of the world, mostly in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Palau is ridiculously small, Tuvalu and Samoa come close, and there any number of former kingdoms in French Polynesia that could become independent. Wallis and Futuma still have powerless traditional monarchies, if I'm not mistaken.

In the US, there was Gardiner's Island, a speck lying between the arms of Long Island that was independent of any colonial jurisdiction before the Revolution, and was ruled only by its Lords of the Manor of the Gardiner family. New York took control of it during the revolution, but the Gardiner family still owns it _today_ - they were originally granted the land by Charles I. I think it would be fun to make it a Loyalist exclave, like St. Pierre and Miquelon somehow remained French.

Then there's the Mormons on Beaver Island in L. Michigan. It's a shame they never got their act together.

 

[max-ks]

Freetown Christiania comes to mind

 

[Franciscus Caesar]

have Italy never have unification and instead work it in reverse. instead of the Italian nations coming together have them have factions grow in each of their states and they will split apart (ex: Turin will have growth of nationalism and split away from Savoy/ Milan)

 

[Tyr]

There's that little republic in the south of France that technically never stopped being independent. Also the kingdom off Sicily. Both of which still exist, just never getting the recognition of the "real" microstates.

Aye, I've heard of that one on the Italian/French border (Italian side IIRC)
What's this one off Sicily though? The knights?

 

[Highlander]

*insert typical nationalist Pennylvndian rant here*

 

[Thande]

In the US, there was Gardiner's Island, a speck lying between the arms of Long Island that was independent of any colonial jurisdiction before the Revolution, and was ruled only by its Lords of the Manor of the Gardiner family. New York took control of it during the revolution, but the Gardiner family still owns it _today_ - they were originally granted the land by Charles I. I think it would be fun to make it a Loyalist exclave, like St. Pierre and Miquelon somehow remained French.

That's a cool idea.

 

[Venice]

The Swiss cantons never unite? We'd get some little countries there...if they didn't get swallowed up by Prussia or something, that is...

Maybe a Brussells microstate in the future?

Danzig could feasily stay independent in my mind...that also brings to mind Fiume, Trieste, maybe Piombino?

A stretch, but surviving Crusader states? modern day County of Tripoli, or a tiny Kingdom of Jerusalem, centered on Jerusalem only?

There's hundreds that you can think of in Italy too...

Avignon is also a good candidate, possibly...

Nieuw Amsterdam, if not taken by the British, is a good choice...Cape Town if South Africa never develops...

Hong Kong, Macau, both are possibly indepedent on their own, a la Singapore-esque governments and such. Shanghai could adopt such a government type as well. Bombay, Goa, Diu, Pondicherry in India? Aden, the emirates in the UAE...
There's others, but I'm too tired to think of them.

 

[False Dmitri]

Aye, I've heard of that one on the Italian/French border (Italian side IIRC)
What's this one off Sicily though? The knights?

Off Sardinia (as somebody said). Some sheep-herding man was actually recognized internationally as King of Tavolara, off the coast of Sardinia. He actually kept up the title, but what with the tribulations of the 20th century everyone kind of lost track and forgot about it. Or something like that. Look up the Kingdom of Tavolara if you want some real information.

 

[Guarnasco]

Oh, and that one "principality" in Italy, something with... Sergovia or so? But thats artifical and only mock-independant, too, just like that "Republic" in France.

Are you referring to SEBORGA? It is an odd story about the annexinon of that tiny place was omitted during some conference, the papers lost and forgotten cause no one actually cared about it, not even the inabitants that actually discovered the omission after a cuple of generation who lived as italians.... now is only a folkoristic entity!

 

[iori]

Perhaps the Free City of Kraków managing to remain.
Heck maybe by the time WW2 comes around (some city-state in Eastern Europe is not likely to cause alot of changes) it gets treated as a 'Switzerland of Eastern Europe', and manages to remain independent while Nazi Germany takes over Poland.

 

[NCW]

Any ideas?
Maybe some more border irregularities like neutral Moresnet? Though that doesn't really count as a nation.
Perhaps another state or two in Germany that escapes unification?-this one in particular would be very interesting to see!
How about something eastern European? Now that would be particularly cool. To have a real Latveria (sans super villain) would be very cool.

Well, there's always the Passport to Pimlico option.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Fiji]

A few German Hansestädte going/staying solo. They'll need to keep it up to at least WW1. Being a neutral Hansestadt after a WW1 in which the rest of Germany lost will be a very interresting position to be in.

And there's Sealand, which was de facto recognised as being not Brittish on several occasions. And Germany sent a diplomat there to negociate the release of some mercenaries.
If that last event gets more media attention and the question of Sealandian independance somehow manages to come before the UN ...
Suppose Sealand is officially recognised. Won't we see people going off to international waters , dumping tons of concrete into the ocean and declaring independance once the pile of rubble gets above the water?

Another option is that World islands project in the Emirates. the UAE initially intended to relinquis ownership of the islands once sold, thereby making 300 chuncks of terra nullis. But all of UAE's neighbours as well as many other nations declared they wouldn't recognise the move.
I don't see, though, short of bringing in an ASB with a taste for sun and sea, how we can get a significant portion of the world's nations to recognise these 300 islands.

 

[Bucky]

Could West Frisia break off during Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1600s? While culturally very Niederlanderish, they've historically done a brisk trade with the English and their spoken language is practically intelligible in English (assuming both parties keep it simple, avoid Francologisms, and speak slowly in "booth goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk."

West Frisia, if not a microstate, would certainly be at least a verysmallstate.

 

[proximefactum]

I think it's cool to think about truly independent microstates headed by dukes/dutchesses, kings/queens and whatnot, but I think that microstates are really boutique items in the 21st century economy.

Modern microstates printed their own money or now have their own euro design, but in essence the coins are for numismatics. Up until the 1990's the Vatican minted lira coins up to L1000 (about 50 US cents at the euro changeover in 2002). The coins were obviously collector's pieces, though they could legally be spent anywhere in Italy or San Marino. I am almost certain the the Vatican euro coin set is strictly a commemorative set, as likely was the Vatican lira set before it.

So, European microstates almost inevitably relied on a larger state (or after 2002, the ECB through the mediation of a larger European state) to do their finances for them. How much independence do Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, and the Vatican have if they must answer to Brussels for EU regulations and Frankfurt for the cash? European integration inevitably means that in the least microstates are financially tied to the ECB, and mostly are reliant on larger nations for certain levels of EU governance.

Outside of the Eurozone and the EU there are true microstates, and I suggest that more could be created. Still, there will inevitably be some form of external intervention, like in East Timor. It seems that with modern communication and the lopsided power differential between the US/W. Europe/China and small countries that political intervention is almost inevitable and perhaps welcomed in the case of struggling developing micronations.

 

[fhaessig]

Independent state of Alsace.

PoD 1871.

HUGE butterflies.

 

[Bill Cameron]

Proximefactum has this right. Micro-nations are political and economic boutique items, they're little more hot house flowers whose existence is entirely dependent on a greenhouse maintained by someone else.

Monaco, Andorra, and all the rest would be extent if they hadn't signed over major portions of their sovereignty centuries ago to the real nations surrounding them. They exist on the sufferance of others, nothing less.


Bill

 

[Julius Vogel]

Possibly some sort of stronger shared sovereignty states in the New World/Dominions?

Say for examples sake that one of the Iwi/Tribes that supported the Imperial forces in the NZ Land Wars was given some sort of further reward that recognised their right to rule in the traditional manner over a defined territory that the colonial and Imperial government stayed out of? Sort of like the traditional status of the Cook Islands, but within the mainland territory of New Zealand