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Christmas Gifts For The Baron Of Sealand In Your Life: These stylish Sealand Propeller Cufflinks with precious red and green agate stones make it easy to tell port from starboard with just one glance.
Approved by the Royals of Sealand, the Sealand Cufflinks feature an engraved gold plate with Sealand’s Crest on its classy gift box.
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The Seasteading Institute is an organisation dedicated toward creating sustainable sea platforms where people can choose to live if they’re unsatisfied with life on solid ground. They recently held a design contest for people to come up with new deep-sea micronations like Sealand, and the winner has been announced.
This is the ‘Swimming City’ designed by Hungarian Andras Gyorfi. Designed as a recreational resort, Andras built the model in a 3D design program, and won $1000 as first prize winner.
And take a look at some of the other entries…
Oasis of the Sea by Emerson Stepp
SESU Seastead by Marko Jarvela
Entwined Dragon Seastead by Patrick Kenny
Check out more entries and find out more about the Seasteading Institute at their home page.
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Earlier this week we took a look at the unusual phenomena of micronations in Australia. Our Antipodean cousins are mad about their independent nations and have an unusually large number of Sealand-esque states within the official Australian borders. Here are the final six in our rundown.
Empire of Atlantium
The rather grand-sounding ‘Empire of Atlantium’ is described in The Lonely Planet Guide to Micronations as a ‘secular humanist utopia’. The Empire was established by three teenagers from Sydney in 1981, who claimed 10m2 of territory in the Sydney suburb of Narwee. The Empire lasted until 1990 when the friends moved apart, but was relaunched in 1999 in an apartment building and continues to this day.
Principality of Marlborough
This Queensland-based nation lasted just 11 days. George Muirhead was faced with the threat of repossession and after losing a court case in 1993 he declared his home to be an independent state and barred the bank and Queensland government from entering. 11 days later police officers evicted George and his wife, gaining themselves a fair bit of publicity in the process.
Principality of Oceania
His Serene Highness Prince Peter The First (or Peter Gilles to his friends) declared his 66 hectare property an independent principality in May 2003 following a number of failed legal disputes with the New South Wales government. After he was declared bankrupt and evicted the property was purchased by an Oceania supporter and Prince Peter moved back in. They now own even more land and have 140 residents.
Principality of Snake Hill
Another principality that came about as a result of legal wrangling, Snake Hill is a religious state with a constitution based on the ten commandments. They succeeded from Australia in September 2003 after losing what they claim was a wrongful court case for non-payment of a mortgage.
Gay and Lesbian King of the Coral Sea Islands
No prizes for guessing the agenda of this micronation. Based in southeast Queensland, Dale Anderson sailed onto the largest of the Coral Sea islands and planted a rainbow flag, declaring their independence from the rest of Australia following a ruling to ban same-sex marriage. They have no permanent settlement and it’s not recognised by the government, but is intended as a political protest.
The United Federation of Koronis
Definitely one of the weirdest micronations we’ve ever heard of, the Federation has claimed rights to the Koronis family of asteroids (yes, in space) through interpretation of a law governing the appropriation of extraterrestrial bodies. As the asteroids are uninhabitable and the Federation lacks a space craft they have a base here on Earth, with property in Sydney and other parts of the eastern Australian coast considered a sovereign property separate from the Australian government.
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You may have noticed that Australia is a big, big country. So big you could fit 31 nations the size of the UK into its borders! Given the stupendous size and relatively low population, then, it’s not a great surprise to learn that Australians are not unfamiliar with the concept of a micronation like Sealand, with all that land you’ve got a much better chance of sneaking off and claiming a piece of it as your own.
Since the 1970s there have been at least 12 micronations established down under. They put the rest of the world to shame! Here are the first six in our rundown.
Province of Bumbunga
Founded by staunch British monarchist Alex Brackstone. He decided to ensure that part of Australia would remain loyal to the Queen, so declared his four-hectare property independent and promoted himself to governor. Brackstone created a strawberry patch shaped like the UK as a tourist attraction. Lasted until 1999 when Brackstone returned to the UK.
Grand Duchy of Avram
Founded by John Charlton Rudge in the early 1980s, the Duchy of Avram never claimed land like other micronations, but it did have its own currency and ‘b_nk’ where you had to exchange money to buy things from Rudge’s own shop. The government took him to court over this but lost the case (and $22m spent on it), and Rudge continues to promote the Duchy of Avram to this day. He has served as a politician for the Tasmanian state government and as a deputy mayor.
The Principality of Hutt River
Leonard Casley was so upset after a dispute about wheat quotas that he seceded from Western Australia and declared himself ‘Royal Highness Prince Leonard I’ to protect against prosecution by the government. Hutt River is Australia’s longest-running micronation and has its own stamps and coins.
Principality of Ponderosa
A 24 hectare farm near Shepparton in Victora, Ponderosa was founded by Prince Little Joe Rigoli and his dad, Prince Virgilio. It was apparently a place where “Christians, white Anglo-Saxons and capitalists are not discriminated against”, and tax dodgers are obviously welcome, too: the pair were convicted in 2005 of defrauding the Australian government.
Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina
The ‘Supreme Lord’ of Aeterna Lucina was Paul Baron Neuman, a German pensioner who, among several hundreds of other titles, claimed he had been given the name ‘Baron of Nueman of Kara Bagh’ by the exiled King Hassan III of Afghanistan. Aeterna Lucina was founded in 1978 started in a property owned by Neuman near Byron Bay, eventually moving to a 14km2 area in New South Wales. The state lasted until Neuman died in the 1990s.
Independent State of Rainbow Creek
Founded by a group of farmers as a protest against the Victorian state government over a complicated legal issue, the farmers declared war on Victoria in 1978 in an attempt to gain publicity for their complaints, and founded Rainbow Creek in 1979 after hearing about the Hutt province. Their legal wrangling continued until the mid 1980s when founder Thomas Barnes retired to Queensland.
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