The history of micronations is long and ongoing. Mangy of them failed as tax avoidance schemes and some still run as fundamentally tax avoidance schemes. However within this history are some that shine through. Firstly Liberland, a micronaiton on an area of unclaimed land between Croatia and Serbia. The green highlight in the image below.

Unclaimed land Wikipedia

Yellow area is where Libreland is located inside. The yellow areas are areas for possible new Micronations. Similar to the Michigan townships Liberlands claim developed without a fight as everything done was completely legal. However, unlike the townships, this is a legitimate country, or micronaitons at least, and while its claim to the land is undisputed, accessing the land has been prevented by Croatian local police at times.

A theme developing with these groups, a pattern of having events where the community can physically group up. Like the others, Liberland has an ongoing series of events throughout the year. They also host an annual conference and music festival in Liberland.

Screenshot fro liberland.org/en/register

When you register an account on their site they list conferences an an option. Suggesting this is a popular way to get people interest in things like this. Liberland isn’t without its issues, while Serbia supports the nation as it helps their claims for land against Coatia, Croatia has arrested the Leader on one attempt to enter the nation spending 2 nights in Jail and has 19 convictions against people who have tried to enter the country through crossing the river as of 2016. Source

When travelling to the annual music festival on their site they recommend avoiding Croatia.

“WARNING – Osijek Airport is the nearest to the festival. Still, it is in Croatia territory, you might experience issues and delays on border cross; for your own comfort do not mention you are attending a Liberandian event 🙂”

All micronations lie on a scale of not very legitimate to very legitimate. One very legitimate on is Somaliland. It is recognised by the UK Government with strong support among a handful of others. Unlike many of the micronations listed on MicroWiki, Somaliland was created through the Somali Civil War, not something I want to encourage through this project.

Asgardia is a micronation that lies on another level to any other I wall talk about here. Funded by a Russian billionaire, it claim sovereign territory on a couple of satellites in low earth orbit. You can track it here and here.

Born out of frustration for Asgardia the nation of Alaurentia was born, but doesn’t have the level of support and development as Asgardia

There was a foundation to support micronations called the Phoenix Foundation. This the type of thing I want to help develop, however, this supported one of the aforementioned tax-avoidance nations Minerva

Many micronations don’t actually claim any sovereign territory including for example Lostisland. But is fundamentally a community advocating for freedom and democracy.

Image from Wikipedia

One claim to land is the proximity to land owed by a nation. Leveraging overseas land and becoming allies with the nation could serve as a method to gain some level of governance or autonomy with a piece of land.

The International Agricultural Development Pact is an agreement between a small group of active micronations regarding the promotion of agriculture as a source for economic growth for micronations. This shows small movements among micronations working together to help a rising sea raise all boats.