New Utopia

  • Micronations
  • Founded 13 April 1999
  • Founder Howard Turney
  • Area 322 km²

New Utopia is an unclaimed plot of land in the Caribbean Sea. It lies off the Cayman islands and was started as an entrepreneurial venture by Howard Turney, who later changed his name to Prince Lazarus Long. He dreamt of a hyper-capitalist tax-haven, citing the of writings of Ayn Rand, Napoleon Hill, Robert Heinlein, Dale Carnegie, and Adam Smith as inspiration. Turnley raised $100 million twith the aim of building houses out of floating concrete but was later accused of a ‘fraudulent nationwide Internet scheme’. Turnley died in 2012, the project has recently been revived by his daughter Elizabeth Henderson, who promises to have New Utopia completed by 2021.

Explore De Facto

South Ossetia

South Ossetia is a de facto state in South Caucasus, which declared independence from Georgia in 1991. Military conflicts with the Georgian army occurred in 1991-1992, 2004 and 2008. South Ossetia is recognized as a state by the UN member states Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria, and by the unrecognized states Transnistria, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. It is a very mountainous region at the juncture of Asia and Europe, which struggles economically as employment and supplies are scarce. The region relies heavily on military, political and financial aid from Russia.

Conejo Island

Isla Conejo (rabbit island), lies in the Gulf of Fonseca and is disputed between El Salvador and Honduras. The bay was discovered in 1522 by Gil González de Ávila and named after his patron, Archbishop Juan Fonseca. The three countries that share the coastline—Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua—were involved in a longstanding dispute over the rights of the Gulf and its islands until 1992, when the International Court of Justice determined that they were to share control of the Gulf of Fonseca and the rights over the islands were distributed among the three. Conejo Island was however left unmentioned and thus remained a subject of discussion between Honduras and El Salvador.

Nutopia

On the 1st of April, 1973 John Lennon and Yoko Ono announced: ‘[...] the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA. Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA. NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic. All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country. As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and its people.’ The Nutopian anthem (included on Lennon’s album Mind Games) consists of only a few seconds of silence, finding a resemblance in John Cage's 4’33’’. Besides stating an ideology that is in line with the famous song ‘Imagine’ this was also seen as a satirical response to Lennon’s ongoing immigration troubles.