More micronations!

Re: Islands.
Yeah they do count as micronations too and some of them even have kings but...I dunno, they're just not as cool are they?
Only European micronations really carry the style that comes with such a honour...Though I suppose something based in N.America would be nifty too...And Asian ones do have a slight bit of style to them....


St.Helna- Hmm, first time around Napoleon was given his own microstate as emperor wasn't he? Isn't there a TL somewhere where this survives?
 

Thande

Donor
How about the Free City of New Orleans, maybe the result of a slightly different War of 1812? That sounds like a plausible North American microstate.
 

Susano

Banned
How about the Free City of New Orleans, maybe the result of a slightly different War of 1812? That sounds like a plausible North American microstate.

I think the USA wanted New Orleans more than the entire rest of Louisiana taken together, so that might be a problem...
 
Re: Islands.
Yeah they do count as micronations too and some of them even have kings but...I dunno, they're just not as cool are they?
Only European micronations really carry the style that comes with such a honour...Though I suppose something based in N.America would be nifty too...And Asian ones do have a slight bit of style to them....


St.Helna- Hmm, first time around Napoleon was given his own microstate as emperor wasn't he? Isn't there a TL somewhere where this survives?


Well, some Pacific Islands have some forms of royalty, but perhaps not analagous to European styles. That being said, the Kings of Tonga tend to be entertaining in a typically corrupt royal fashion.

Perhaps we could get some sort of odd POD where Pacific Islands all take on the characteristics of eccentric European royals
 
A few random ones I can think of - Republic of Bali, Kingdom of Sikkim (between Nepal and Bhutan), Republic of Ezo (Hokkaido).
 
I am surprised nobody has mentioned Åland yet. They do have a independence party, Ålands Framtid, who accordind to their mission statement "want Åland to become a sovereign, neutral and demilitarized microstate in the ever growing and more and more respected European family of microstates." They even have representatives in the local parliament, the Lagting.

Personally, I am all for independence for Åland: the islands get much more subsidies from the mainland than they bring in tax revenue... That might of course be the biggest obstacle to independence: the majority of the islanders know this quite well, too.
 
Ignoring the myriad microstates which actually did exist, how about a breakdown of French control over Aquitaine around the 1100-1400s? Or heck, a total breakdown of control from Paris, there were numerous conspiracies and intrigues where powerful French nobles tried to become quasi-independent and force the Kings of France to recognise their right to do what they wanted. Aquitaine, though, barely even had any Ducal control, let alone royal. It was very hard for the Dukes of Aquitaine to make their control stretch any further than literally a whole three cities and a tiny bit of hinterland. If you remove the overlordship of Paris, the French nobles will probably descend into an Italy-like mix of states of varying sizes and ambitions, while Aquitaine, if you can prevent someone walking in and overrunning the place, could become the tiny, western European equivalent of the Chinese warlord states. Literally, it was a mash of vassals who ignored the Duke, and essentially spent most of their time making alliances, starting fief v fief wars over blood feuds, and etc. It'd be fantastic if they survived.

It's a real push, but Frisia would be good, too. Have someone with little interest in centralisation become the Duke of Holland around the 1400s (marriage to Jacqueline of Hainaut works) and they inherit overlordship of Frisia, which in this era stretched along the North Sea coast almost to Denmark. If they can have the HRE recognise their right to rule there (probably by virtue of in turn, strengthening their own vassalage to the HRE) and then lead a campaign to have Frisia recognise them too, there's a wealth of possibilities. Frisia in the middle ages and the mediaeval era was a mix of town and village communities, hundreds of them, where virtually not a single settlement recognised any more than a loose connection with the local town as protector. Have them get an overlord who doesn't care about them, so they can be safe from invasion, and that whole area could slowly turn into a mass of independently governed townships, each of which would probably claim stateship in their own right. Kind of like a Holy Roman Empire-lite, I guess. You could even end up with a HRE-in-a-HRE.

Or how about the Republic of Bou Regreg, a pirate republic which extended over a mere two cities, two cities which were conjoined at a river mouth anyway?
 

Germaniac

Donor
If the POD is before 1900 then thats easy... Germany and Italy don't unite leaving all those little countries
 
Adriatic coast...

Um, there were a bunch of cosmopolitan Greek city-states along the Adriatic coast until the Turks threw them out a couple of generations back...

'Existing on the sufferance of others' ?
IIRC, Napoleon sent a small army to conquer Andorra. Getting close, they asked a shepherd for directions. He pointed up the track, towards a village. A mile or three beyond the village, they again asked for directions. They were pointed back the way they'd come. Assuming they'd missed a turn at the village, they wandered around the hills for a while then went home, baffled...
 

Susano

Banned
If the POD is before 1900 then thats easy... Germany and Italy don't unite leaving all those little countries

Those wouldnt be micronations, with some exceptions like Waldeck and the Thuringian states...
Besides, the PoD is implausible.
 
Um, there were a bunch of cosmopolitan Greek city-states along the Adriatic coast until the Turks threw them out a couple of generations back...

Ey? I've not heard of these.
Bar that one island nation that existed at the time of the Ottomans.
 
Um, there were a bunch of cosmopolitan Greek city-states along the Adriatic coast until the Turks threw them out a couple of generations back...
???

Aside from Ragusa (a staunchly Catholic Italo-Croat city-state on the Venitian model), I can only think of the reminants of the Epriot despotate.

You could argue about a lot of Greeks on the Aegean coast, but they were tolerably well intergrated with (and a minority in) said Ottoman lands until the Greek Invasion and population exchange.

HTG
 

Valdemar II

Banned


Christiania isn't independent, its territorium is owned by the Danish state, literal in this case, the Danish navy own the area, plus it has never sought recognisation as a state. Any attempt to declare real independece would either result in the Danish state sending in the police and throw them out, or if they're evil close the border and cut of electricity and water, which has been paid by the navy for decades (through it has changed in the late 90 with paying it themselves). The police sometimes get rid of houses which is against Danish zoning rules. So clearly Christiania isn't a state.
 
Last edited:

Valdemar II

Banned
Independent state of Alsace.

PoD 1871.

HUGE butterflies.

Wouldn't be a microstate, to big and to many people.
Personal I don't count any state with over 100000-150000 people a microstate.

But a potential could be a free city of Strassburg (I think it would keep it German name if it were independent). Maybe if the HRE doesn't recognise it annexion and reestablish it again in 1814.
 
Top