In The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), Ambrose Bierce defined “boundary” as follows: “BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.” In Geography 5 (People, Place, and Environment: Introductory Human Geography), Dan Montello is fond of making the same point by citing the case of the “microstate” of Sealand as an example of political geography, the study of the spatial organization and distribution of political phenomena. Dan points out that almost the entire land surface of the earth, and much of the water, is claimed as being under the territorial control of some country, and he uses Sealand as “an hilarious case study for the principles of political geography”:
The Principality of Sealand is a self-declared, unrecognized country-like entity that claims for its territory Roughs Tower, an abandoned WWII artillery platform in the North Sea about 6 miles off the east coast of England. Sealand was formed in 1967 by Englishmen Roy Bates. He proclaimed it an independent state and named himself Prince Roy of Sealand; his wife became Princess Joan. Sealand measures 550 square meters, and its population has rarely exceeded five people. In 1967, Britain extended its territorial waters from 3 to 12 miles—but so did Sealand!
Although its claim to sovereignty and legitimacy are generally not taken seriously, it is nevertheless sometimes cited in debates as an interesting case study of how various principles of international law can be applied to a disputed territory. Clearly, it also provides an hilarious case study for the principles of political geography. No other state explicitly recognizes the sovereignty of Sealand, but judges in a couple British court cases have refused to rule on it because it was outside of British sovereign waters. Sealand has fired guns on a couple of occasions to defend itself.
MORAL: Invented countries exist mostly in the minds of their citizens. But then real countries are essentially the same — shared notions about how to divide control of the world’s surface and people. In a sense, all you have to do to establish a state is stake your claim and then convince the rest of the world to accept its legitimacy. There are several principles of international law that have been established to determine state sovereignty, but recognition by other states is the main one.
ADDENDUM:Sealand was put up for sale in January 2007 by Prince Michael (son of Roy and Joan). Roy (85 at this time) lives in Spain.
Editor’s note: Sealand issues its own stamps, passports, and certificates of naturalization. It even sells official titles—for about $40, Dan could stake his claim and become Lord (or Baron) Montello of the Principality of Sealand – heck, I’d recognize him! For more information and pictures, see http://www.sealandgov.org/ and the National Geographic News article, “‘Smallest Country’ for Sale — Sea Views Included, Land Extra” at https://web.archive.org/web/20180314060425/https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070118-sealand.html.
Article by Bill Norrington
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