Well, that was a little more complicated. Hawaii gave foreigners an easy path to citizenship. The immigrants overthrew the monarchy, then voted to allow the U.S. to colonize them.
(And yes, I am aware that it was more complicated than that.)
The Iberian Union was a thing for a while, established by dynastic union under the Spanish Habsburgs (who else?). Eventually the Portuguese revolted and called the whole thing off.
In case anyone is inspired by this thread to form their own country, the Master spoke.
Or the way maps work, I suppose, if by ‘small’, people are thinking like that
Small countries have some advantages. More likely to have a common language and culture. People are more likely to feel connected.
Italy and Germany were mainly smaller city-states a few hundred years ago. Militant bigger states have long been a thing, but it is tough to continuously attack and defend and it is challenging to rule large areas for long periods. Small states often were islands or isolated, or on the other extreme, very politically savvy. Or larger states became too hard to rule and broke into smaller nations - more likely if the manner of ruling is perceived to be unhelpful.
But Italian city states and German kingdoms and principalities endlessly fought each other for centuries, on their own territories as well as between Italian and German states. This ended in 1861 (Italy) and 1871 (Germany) with unification.
True. It’s tough to be too big for too long. And it’s tough to be small. If warlike, you need consistently good leadership and diplomacy, and still the people grow weary of war. If peaceful, still need to defend against those less so.
Still, there is symmetry. – Zaathras
San Marino was left independent after the Italian unification wars as a reward for backing the right side, in essence.
As mentioned above, each case will have its own separate reason and history - there is no overarching reason covering all of them.
Czechoslovakia was an artificial country, pasted together by more powerful countries, which made promises that were not kept-- like a dual capital in both Prague and Bratislava.
When it had outlived its usefulness, the Bohemians, Moravians, and Slovaks mutually decided to dissolve the country in what is now called the “Velvet Revolution.” The Bohemians and Moravians, both Czech-speakers, formed the Czech Republic, and the Slovaks formed the Republic of Slovakia. People who had been born on one side of the split, but were living on the other at the time, or who were ethnic Slovaks living in the new Czech Republic-- or ethnic Czechs living in the new Slovakia (as the Republic was commonly called) were by treaty given a certain amount of time to decide which citizenship they wished to assume.
I had family there-- not direct ancestors, but extended family in Slovakia who somehow survived the war, and one aunt (actually, my grandmother’s cousin), who was in the position of having been born in Slovakia, but moved to Prague, and married a Czech. She chose to become a Czech citizen, and stay in Prague, and filled out her paperwork within like, 3 days of the date of the countries’ separation. Then, before the end of the first year, she became a widow. As I understand it, she could have withdrawn her paperwork, but she didn’t.
I’ve been long fascinated by Sealand…
During the Second World War, the British government built several Fortress islands in the North Sea to defend its coasts from German invaders. Some of these forts were built illegally in international waters.
They look like an oil platform or something. They should have been destroyed but this one wasn’t, so this guy decided to get one.
After consulting his lawyers, Roy decided to declare this fortress island the independent state of “Sealand”, Claiming “Jus Gentium” (“Law of Nations”) over a part of the globe that was “Terra Nullius” (Nobody’s Land).
I thought the thing had gone bust but this site says you can purchase a title etc.
A wikipedia article says:
In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a national flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.[10]
Can anybody beat 43,060 sqft for a micronation?
Goa was historically a part of India. Colonists like British, Dutch and Portuguese fought over it. https://www.dip.goa.gov.in/history-of-goa/
The Portuguese carried out the Goa Inquisition - trying to convert all Goans to Catholicism. All local people were persecuted in one form or another.
It is to be noted that Sephardic Jews, who had escaped the Spanish Inquisition and were living in Goa, were also targeted by the Portuguese Goa Inquisition.
It’s not really a “nation” if there are no people, is it? Your wiki link describes a death-trap WW2 sea fort, within British territorial waters, with “normally like two people on it”, and a fisherman/pirate radio broadaster who has a sideline selling fantasy passports.
A little nitpicky I guess (what else is new), but I can’t really go along with some of those. Hard to call the Swiss “a specific people” in historical terms - they’re notoriously polyglot. They arose out of a combination of geographic confederation (common political aims in a small mostly alpine zone) and a bit of conquest rather than through any kind of firm ethnic nationalism.
The Dutch language grouping of course includes Flemish that makes up about 60% of Belgium. The Netherlands is a historical artifact of the Eighty Years War - basically seven northern provinces of the Protestant Low Countries that were able to hold out against their Spanish overlords + a few chunks of the southern states, while Belgium is mostly derived from the southern 10 provinces (or sections thereof) that Spain succeeded in pacifying. It’s origins slightly pre-date the Age of Nationalism and was largely created in response to religious tumult, not ethnic nationalism.
Austria proper was once part of the stem duchy of Bavaria separated out in the 12th century for political reasons and is about as German as its Bavarian neighbor. They exist because they were the German-speaking center of the multi-ethnic Habsburg empire. In that you can argue they are a ethnic nation state in modern parlance, but they are distinct from the rest of Germany only by historical accident.
Now many of the rest as modern nations ARE the result of ethnic nationalism, sometimes practiced on their behalf as with Poland. It was basically finally dissolved after a long history by the expanding Prussian, Habsburg and Russian empires in the late 18th century, then reconstituted from their carcasses again as a modern nation after WW I. But historical Poland was at one time massive and encompassed much of what is today Belarus, parts of Ukraine and the Baltic states.
What would happen if a force of 10,000 mercenaries decided to take over a micronation, sort of like a modern day William Walker?
Most, if not all, micronations have defense agreements with larger countries. So those larger countries would be expected to do something about that. For example, many Pacific island countries have such agreements with New Zealand, Australia, France, or the United States.
However, in the case of Kuwait, the Emir had to convince* George H. W. to come to his rescue. It wasn’t automatic because there was no treaty.
*I may be wrong on him having to convince Bush, but that’s how I remember it.
There are super national organisations such as the EU and NATO in Europe, that provide a favourable economic framework and provide security protection for small states that cannot afford armies.
However those international conditions tend to wax and wane.
In the 19th century, the rise of nationalism led to a lot of smaller countries being absorbed into new larger states. The big examples being the unification of Italy and Germany. The various Empires that come along from time to time also allow small states to exist as long as they pay tribute or offer some other kind of advantage. Many rulers of large states keep money in micro states that specialise in providing off-shore financial services to the rich and powerful.
Small states can target areas of business that do not require large territories to accumulate large reserves. Sitting a big pile of money is a very effective way to keep the wolves from the door…during peacetime.
2 people living on .004 km2 amounts to a density of 500 people per sq km.
For 2015, the population density of Mongolia was 1.914 people per square kilometer. In 2021, the population increase moved the population density of Mongolia up to 2.045 people per square kilometer.
I wasn’t really looking at language as being the defining characteristic- I know that the Flemish and Dutch are very similar- been to Flanders and the Netherlands in fact, and that Flemish and Dutch are nearly identical linguistically.
My point was that in general, many smaller nations are more or less contiguous with where the particular ethnic group is settled. That doesn’t mean that it’s a 100% overlap or anything, just that it’s often sort of the historical land where they’re settled.
Belium … that was the Spanish Netherlands… Remember the spanish King Charles … So thats a situation of spite…The English french german dutch spanish russians all disagreed to let the other have it… so it remained seperate. Due to Royal families ,etc.
Lesotho … the Sotho people battled Boers and Brits to keep them out. The Brits having their own fight with the Boers, decided to support their autonomy. . An enemy of your enemy is your friend !.
Singapore… actually it was included in Malaysia for a year. But there was too much of a culture clash, with the government of malaysia trying to install a muslim culture ( things like pray breaks, work hours, public holidays, butchers… all get affected… ) across the country and SIngapore wasn’t having that, and Malaysia decided that they didnt want such rebel in their mob. The western influence wanted Singapore to stabilise Malaysia, to make it a capitalist country, to lock the communists out. Indonesia actually wanted to disturb the creation of Malaysia, with the Malay emergency, because the communists couldnt take over in stable countries. Indonesia realised they were supporting the communist agenda … and there was a massacre of communists and probably more innocents (murder during the anarchy … )