Defining Microstates:

Finding the Threshold of Sovereignty

McQuillin Murphy
December 14, 2014

The Pennsylvania State University

Geography 020U
Dr. Roger Downs

Murphy 1

Abstract
Microstates are the words tiniest states, anomalies of
international politics and geography, but with importance
beyond their diminutiveness. As geographically, culturally,
politically, and economically interesting as they are, there is no
comprehensive and effective definition of microstates. This
paper will describe and analyze the problems with defining
microstates, provide a new definition, and distinguish

microstates from aspirant states and other world-level bodies. I

will address how, in defining these states, we can expose much
about the worlds systems. Finally, this paper will propose the
exploration of how microstates reveal the threshold of
sovereignty while simultaneously molding

the cultural,

political, historical, and economic landscapes upon which

they lie.

Murphy 2
Introduction
Microstates are overlooked lands, hidden in every maps patchwork of color and lines,
often appearing only as dots. These dots, small as they may be, are immensely important when
trying to understand the worlds political, cultural, and economic systems. Microstates are
independent states, sovereign unto themselves, that provide a unique environment for examining
a number of things. They are laboratories of sovereignty and experiments in the inscription of
borders on the world. Each is uniquely defined by its incredibly small size. These are places
where citizenship is defined by a few miles in each direction. In some, the entire state can be
crossed by foot in a time easiest to measure in minutes. That said, neither the micro nor the
state part have immediately clear standards, both of which need to be made more so to move
forward in the discussion about the worlds smallest places.
Defining Statehood
The words country, nation, and state are in and of themselves difficult to define, but
their distinctions are important to understand while navigating this topic. Nations are groups of
people with shared characteristics, such as ethnicity, language, or traditions. A country is a
geographically distinct region and can be without legal status. For example, Appalachia, the
American South, England, New England, and even Siberia can all be considered countries.
While France can be both a country and a state, Monaco is a state, but not a country. Countries
are very analogous to regions.1 States can be defined as sovereign polities2. They are the legal
actors that take to the world stage.3 A states defining characteristic is its sovereignty, which
means it has the absolute right to rule itself.

Murphy, McQuillin, Sovereignty on the Land: Which Places Count as Places. (28 October 2014).
A polity can be defined as a politically organized system or body, a place or unit with a government. For more, see
the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polity>.
3
Murphy, Sovereignty on the Land.
2

Murphy 3
There are two prevailing theories of sovereignty: constitutive and declarative. The
constitutive method of sovereignty states in essence that if another sovereign state recognizes an
entity as a state, it is now a sovereign state.4 This is the method that has been most prevalent
historically and is often accompanied with the formal exchange of ambassadors between states.
The other, newer method of determining sovereignty is called the declarative method.
This stems from the Montevideo Treaty of 1933, which says in its first article that a state is
sovereign if it has a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and a capacity to
enter into relations with other states. By this definition, a state need not be recognized by other
states, but must have achieved these qualifiers peacefully.5 Essentially, it must only achieve de
facto independence to be sovereign.6 We will use both of these methods while trying to define
microstates and review their importance.
In some sense, the constitutive method is most clearly embodied by the United Nations.
This represents the closest thing to a world consensus on the states that are laid upon the globe.
However, the United Nations member states are not the absolute measure of statehood. For
example, there are observer states at the United Nations Vatican City and Palestine which
are therefore given some constitutive recognition, if not full membership.7
Although New Zealand is responsible for much of their international representation and
defense, Niue8 and the Cook Islands9 entered into this arrangement with New Zealand of their

Murphy, Sovereignty on the Land.

Yale Law School. Convention on Rights and Duties of States (inter-American); December 26, 1933. The Avalon
Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam03.asp.
(Accessed October 28, 2014).
6
Murphy, Sovereignty on the Land.
7
United Nations. Member States of the United Nations. UN.org. http://www.un.org/en/members/index.shtml.
(Accessed December 6, 2014).
8
Central Intelligence Agency. Niue. CIA.gov | The World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/ne.html. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
9
Central Intelligence Agency. Cook Islands. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cw.html. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
5

Murphy 4
own accord and are free to end the relationship called free association at any time. This
displays not full independence, but sovereignty in the sense that they maintain the right to rule
themselves as they see fit; in this case, these states choose to enumerate substantial powers to
New Zealand. Because they display this sovereignty, they are indeed states and we will consider
them for microstatehood. By that logic, the same status applies to the Federated States of
Micronesia, 10 the Marshall Islands, 11 and Palau, 12 despite their relationships with the United
States.
The last state that needs to be noted is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.13 The
S.M.O.M. maintains diplomatic relations with 105 states14 and has an observer status at the
U.N.15 By the constitutive measure of sovereignty, this qualifies it as a state, but the S.M.O.M.
does not make it onto any maps, because it has no land territory. This trait makes it a uniquely
interesting case to consider; no state is more micro than the one with no land.16 However,
because it has no territory, the Order does not meet declarative method and many do not consider
it a state, just a sovereign subject of international law. Because it is a polity and meets the
constitutive method of sovereignty by a substantial measure, it is indeed a state, but its legal gray
area is worth noting. We will analyze how the S.M.O.M., the Vatican, and other small states with

10

Central Intelligence Agency. Federated States of Micronesia. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fm.html. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
11
Central Intelligence Agency. Marshall Islands. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rm.html. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
12
Central Intelligence Agency. Palau. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ps.html. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
13
Officially the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, sometimes
referred to as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta or S.M.O.M.
14
Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. john of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. Bilateral Relations.
http://www.orderofmalta.int/diplomatic-relations/862/sovereign-order-of-malta-bilateral-relations/?lang=en.
(Accessed October 28, 2014).
15
United Nations. Member States of the United Nations.
16
Murphy, Sovereignty on the Land.

Murphy 5
limited or no recognition at the United Nations exhibit the threshold of sovereignty the point at
which a polity becomes sovereign.
Defining Size, the Quantitative Method
Microstates are small that much is clear. It is their most defining feature. However, it
turns out that small has more than one measure, which often contradict. The two best
quantitative measurements to consider are population size and land area size.
The maximum population size used to define a microstate can be drawn at various
numbers, but it tends to correspond best with the land area measurement we will discuss below if
it is placed at 500,000 people; this is an already commonly used measurement. According to the
CIA World Factbook, the sovereign states in the world with a population of less than 500,000 are
as follows:
Table 1 - Sovereign States with Populations under 500,000 17

17

Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html. (Accessed December 6,
2014).

Murphy 6
Vatican City
Niue
Nauru
Tuvalu
Cook Islands
Palau
San Marino
Monaco
Liechtenstein
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Marshall Islands
Dominica
Andorra
Antigua and Barbuda
Seychelles
Federated States of Micronesia

839
1,613
10,084
11,323
14,974
20,901
32,743
36,950
37,132
55,000
56,086
71,293
76,098
86,295
89,949
101,351

Tonga
Grenada
Kiribati
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Lucia
So Tom and Prncipe
Samoa
Vanuatu
Barbados
Iceland
Belize
The Bahamas
Brunei
Maldives
Malta

103,252
103,328
106,461
109,000
184,000
187,356
187,820
264,652
285,000
328,170
349,728
368,390
393,372
399,939
416,055

Additionally, the above table lists several states that are not small by land area, a key
facet of being a microstate. Iceland and Belize, for example, are very large compared to
microstates. The following states are the worlds smallest by land area, using 1,000 square
kilometers of land territory as the ceiling:
Table 2 - Sovereign States with Land Areas under 1,000 km2 18
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Vatican City19
Monaco
Nauru
Tuvalu
San Marino
Liechtenstein
Marshall Islands
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Maldives
Malta
Grenada
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Barbados
Antigua and Barbuda
Seychelles
18

0 km2
0.44 km2
2 km2
21 km2
26 km2
61 km2
160 km2
181 km2
261 km2
298 km2
316 km2
344 km2
389 km2
430 km2
443 km2
455 km2

Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Area. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html. (Accessed December 6,
2014).
19
Central Intelligence Agency. Holy See (Vatican City). CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/vt.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).

Murphy 7
Palau
Andorra
Saint Lucia
Singapore20
Federated States of Micronesia
Tonga
Dominica
Bahrain
Kiribati
So Tom and Prncipe

20

459 km2
468 km2
616 km2
687 km2
702 km2
747 km2
751 km2
760 km2
811 km2
964 km2

Central Intelligence Agency. Singapore. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).

Murphy 8
These measures are great starting points, but they produce inconsistent results and do not
bring the process of defining microstates to completion. To do that, we need first to look at the
inconsistencies between the tables, then to look at the rest of the world and account for other
potential candidates for microstatehood, according to more qualitative definitions.
The states that are micro by population, but not by area are Iceland, Belize, Vanuatu,
The Bahamas, and Samoa. Are their land areas close to our measure, close enough to be in an
imperfect gray area that needs consideration? As the Table 3 shows below, there are not. The
smallest of these states is 280% of the 1,000 square kilometer cap, which means that these states
are significantly large than the rest of the worlds microstates.
Table 3 Low-Population States with Land Areas Greater than 1,000 km2 21
Iceland
Belize
The Bahamas
Vanuatu
Brunei
Samoa

103,000 km2
22,966 km2
13,943 km2
12,189 km2
5,765 km2
2,842 km2

The two states that are under 1,000 km2, but have much higher populations, are
Singapore and Bahrain. Singapores population is 5,567,301; Bahrains is 1,314,089.22 If
microstates are states that are both small in population and small in size, Bahrain, Singapore,
Iceland, Belize, The Bahamas, Vanuatu, Brunei, and Samoa are automatically excluded from
being considered microstates.
Land area is a much better definition than population size for one key reason: land area
does not frequently change like populations do. For example, Luxembourg would have qualified
as a microstate by the population requirement until around 2009, when its population grew above

21

United Nations. Population by sex, annual rate of population increase, surface area and density. PDF file.
http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
22
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Area.

Murphy 9
500,000.23 However, states with small populations should not be without mention; after all, they
do have that in common with many of the easier-to-define microstates. The inconsistency in
these measurements exemplifies the problems in using only quantitative measurement, thus we
must turn to qualitative measurements to complete the list of the worlds microstates.
An Existing Qualitative Method: Dumieskis Modern Protected States
To combat the problems with quantitative measurement, Zbigniew Dumieski creates a
new definition of microstates as
modern protected states, i.e. sovereign states that have been able to unilaterally
depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger powers in exchange for benign
protection of their political and economic viability against their geographic or
demographic constraints.24
This means that these states display a unique trait in granting a facet of their governance
be it foreign relations, economic assistance, or military protection to other, larger states25 in
an arrangement that is almost only beneficial to the smaller state. By this measurement,
Dumieski limits microstatehood to Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Andorra, the Cook
Islands, Niue, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.26 Dumieskis
proposal has real promise and contributes well to finding a definition of microstatehood, but his
results are incomplete. For example, he excludes Vatican City, the worlds smallest state.
Despite its shortcomings, Dumieskis definition is a great example of two things: using a
23

The World Bank. Population, total | Luxembourg. data.WorldBank.org.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL/countries/LU?display=graph. (Accessed December 9, 2014).
24
Dumieski, Zbigniew, Microstates as Modern Protected States: Towards a New Definition of Micro-Statehood.
(University of Auckland, 2014). PDF file. http://ams.hi.is/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/Microstates_OccasionalPaper.pdf.
25
Switzerland, Italy, France, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States by Dumieskis list; Australia is added by
my amended definition (see Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States below).
26
Dumieski, Microstates as Modern Protected States.

Murphy 10
qualitative definition of microstatehood and the categorization of microstates. Dumieski has not
really described the worlds smallest states, but rather created a sub-category in Modern
Protected States.
Microstate Categories
Even when applying qualitative definitions to microstates, it is impractical to attempt to
do so with rule of universal consideration. In some sense, microstates are an I-know-it-when-Isee-it type of thing. Any overarching definition will inevitably leave out some of the states that
would frequently be observed as microstates. To create a single qualitative or quantitative
definition is ideal, but impracticable; the list will never be made perfect by this method.
That is because there is not just one kind of microstate. Instead, states can and should be
grouped into categories of defining common characteristics that describe different types of
microstatehood. Together, these make up what we consider microstates. Size is of course the
starting point, but the categories are developed by observing both quantitative and following
Dumieskis lead qualitative common characteristics amongst states.
Therefore, I propose that microstates are best described as being constituent to one or
more of the following categories of states: Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States,
European Remnant Sovereign Systems, Hyper-Dense Ministates, Ministates, Micro-islands, and
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates. Using these categories, here is a list of the worlds
microstates, organized by region:

Murphy 11
Table 4 - Microstates by Region

Andorra
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Monaco
San Marino
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Vatican City

Cook Islands
Federated States of Micronesia
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Nauru
Niue
Palau
Samoa
Tonga
Tuvalu

Table 4.1 - Microstates of Europe

Table 4.2 - Microstates of Oceania

Table 4.3 - Microstates of the Caribbean Region

Antigua and Barbuda
Barbados
Dominica
Grenada
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
So Tom and Prncipe

Bahrain
Maldives
Seychelles
Singapore

Table 4.4 - Microstates of the Indian Ocean Region

European Remnant Sovereign Systems

Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States
Hyper-Dense Ministates
Ministates
Micro-Islands
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates

Murphy 12
Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States
Dumieski left out a few key microstates in his analysis. His list should have included
Vatican City and perhaps even the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Dumieski regards these
as institutions, but the Vaticans status at the United Nations is that of an observer state and it
maintains diplomatic relations with other states worldwide.27 It clearly meets the constitutive and
declarative methods of sovereignty. It may be independent to protect the autonomy of the
Catholic Church, but that makes the Holy See independent nonetheless.
The Sovereign Military Order of Maltas international status is less clear, but it should
not be discounted. It is a unique case of microstatehood that should be included in Dumieskis
measure because of its protected status, even if it cannot meet the declarative methods of
statehood.
Dumieski also did not include Kiribati,28 Samoa,29 or Nauru,30 three states that have
informally ceded control of their defense to larger nearby states namely New Zealand and
Australia in a way that is similar to the formal arrangements of some of the states on
Dumieskis list. Because of these arrangements, they are included as Amended Dumieski
Modern Protected States. This is the only category that Samoa fits into, but it does also meet the
under 500,000 population marker discussed previously.31

27

United Nations. Member States of the United Nations.

Central Intelligence Agency. Kiribati. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kr.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).
29
Central Intelligence Agency. Samoa. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ws.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).
30
Central Intelligence Agency. Nauru. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nr.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).
31
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
28

Murphy 13
With these states and Dumieskis original definition32 in mind, Amended Dumieski
Modern Protected states are: sovereign states that have been able to either formally or informally,
and/or unilaterally depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger powers in exchange for
benign protection of their political and economic viability, against their geographic or
demographic constraints.
Ministates
Ministates are states with land areas of less than 1,000 km2. Most microstates fit into this
category. States with under 1,000 km2 are distinctly small. The next largest state in the world is
Mauritius at 2,040 km2, which makes it about 200% of the bound.33 This gap divides Ministates
from their larger counterparts.
Many Ministates can be walked from end to end in a matter of hours, if not minutes.
Sight lines cross these states border to border. Ministates set the standard for the size of
microstates; this collection of polities is simply and quantitatively geographically miniature,
meeting the most basic of qualifications by which states can and in this case do earn
microstatehood.
Hyper-Dense Ministates
Hyper-Dense Ministates are states that meet two qualifications: 1) they have land areas
less than 1,000 km2 and 2) they have more than 400 people per square kilometer living within
their domain. According to the United Nations, the top 25 most densely populated major polities
in the world have densities of greater than 400 people/km2. Of these, 16 are sovereign states and

32
33

Dumieski, Microstates as Modern Protected States.

Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Area.

Murphy 14
12 are microstates. Of the remaining 9 political entities, 8 would be microstates (as Hyper-Dense
Ministates) if they were sovereign unto themselves.34 This is shown in the table below:
Table 5 Top 25 Most Densely Populated Major Polities 35
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

State, Country, or Distinct Political Region

Monaco
Macao SAR (China)*
Singapore
Hong Kong SAR (China)*
Gibraltar (United Kingdom)*
Holy See
Bahrain
Malta
Sint Maarten (The Netherlands)*
Bermuda (United Kingdom)*
Maldives
Bangladesh
Channel Islands (United Kingdom)*
Palestine
Barbados
Mauritius
Aruba (The Netherlands)*
Mayotte (France)*
San Marino
South Korea
Nauru
Puerto Rico (United States)
Lebanon
Rwanda
Netherlands

Population per km2

24728.2
20562.5
7436.3
6414.5
4875.5
1815.9
1803.3
1344.1
1250.6
1225.5
1092.9
1049.5
818.0
666.6
652.1
603.3
564.4
546.4
505.9
486.8
477.4
418.0
417.4
411.4
400.1

Bolded states are sovereign. Blue filling denotes microstates. States marked with
an asterisk (*) would be Hyper-Dense Ministates if granted sovereignty.

Clearly many of the most densely populated places in the world are microstates. This is
an interesting quality, the ramifications of which can be observed by studying microstates.

34

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Prospects:
The 2012 Revision | Population density by major area, region and country. Microsoft Excel file.
http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm. (Accessed December 6, 2014).
35
United Nations. World Population Prospects | Population density.

Murphy 15
Micro-Islands
A state is a microstate as a Micro-Island if it: 1) is comprised of a single island or small
group of major islands, 2) has a land area of less than 1,000 km2, and 3) its islands are not
connected to a major land mass by bridge. States made up of sprawling archipelagos and islands
that can be driven to from major land masses do not fit into this category. This is an important
distinction to make; in this single-island category, intrastate movement and communication is
not particularly difficult, but interstate movement and communication is.
This is another way of saying that Pacific Micro-Islands are distinctly isolated places.
Nauru exemplifies this. Its closest neighbor is an I-Kiribati island called Banaba, which is
roughly 200 miles away. To take a ship to another island, residents have to ride on a barge
because the coastline is not suitable for a harbor.36 However, it only takes 3.5 hours to walk the
circumference of the island.37 This has interesting implications for this type of microstate.
Perhaps a result of this extreme isolation, Nauruans speak a language not clearly related to any
other Oceanic language.38
Currently, Micro-Islands exist in three places worldwide: the Pacific Ocean, the
Caribbean Region, and Malta. Both of the Pacific Micro-Islands are Amended Dumieski
Modern Protected States. Nauru, because it is the 13th most densely populated sovereign state in
the world, is also a Hyper-Dense Ministate.39 In total, 10 of the 30 microstates in the world are
Micro-Islands.

36

Encyclopdia Britannica. Nauru. Britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/406671/Nauru.

(Accessed December 10, 2014).
37
Google Maps. Walking directions from Nauruan Parliament House to Anabar, Nauru.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Parliament+House,+Nauru/-0.5116355,166.9563333/@0.5337504,166.928123,14z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x6f7d1e803a23b4d3:0xf468cd0e9a3ab39c!2m2!1d166.9
17309!2d-0.547397!1m0!3e2. (Accessed December 9, 2014).
38
Encyclopdia Britannica. Nauru.
39
See Table 5 Top 25 Most Densely Populated Major Polities above.

Murphy 16
Malta and the Caribbean Micro-Islands are not as remote, though they are still only
accessible by sea or air. In these miniature lands surrounded by sea, their proximity to each other,
but lack of land borders is a unique and defining feature. The Caribbean Micro-Islands would be
a great place to study the effects of channels and straits on states relations and behavior.
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates are not single islands, but rather are 1) consisting of
archipelagos and 2) have land areas of under 1,000 km2. Most of these states are in the Pacific,
but two Seychelles and the Maldives are in the Indian Ocean. Almost 1/3 of microstates are
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates,40 which makes it a significant cohort of the worlds
smallest states.
These states are not just isolated from other states, but also within themselves. Sometimes
made up of over 1,000 islands,41 travel between these distant island groups, atolls, and coral
outcroppings requires boats, sometimes planes, but rarely if ever automobiles or trains. Here,
both interstate and intrastate transportation and communication is hindered by the isolated
geography of these sparsely populated strips of beach spread across the Indian and Pacific
Oceans.
Perhaps because of their extremely small sizes and populations, as well as this extreme
isolation, most are also Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States.42 Because of these traits
and likely many more, Indo-Pacific Ministates are an interesting category of microstates and a
grouping of places with truly unique geographies to study.
European Remnant Sovereign Systems

40

See Table 4 Microstates by Region.

Central Intelligence Agency. Maldives. CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mv.html. (Accessed December 10, 2014).
42
See Table 4 Microstates by Region.
41

Murphy 17
European Remnant Sovereign Systems make up one of the most prominent and distinct
categories microstates. These states which include Monaco, the Vatican, and Luxembourg,
among others are the most widely known as characterizing the concept of microstatehood.
European Remnant Sovereign Systems are states that remain from a time before the patchwork
of tiny kingdoms, principalities, duchies, theocracies, electorates, republics, and city-states was
largely consolidated by the European powers; these states have either not been conquered by
Europes larger powers or have been restored to independence in approximately the same form in
which they once existed, with government systems reminiscent of a more feudal Europe than has
existed since the late 19th Century.
Hidden in the corners of Western Europe, European Remnant Sovereign Systems have
for one reason or another survived the unifications of the larger states in Western Europe, all of
which were once constituent to collections of small polities that existed in similar form to the
modern microstates. Liechtenstein and Luxembourg are surviving German states that outlasted
Bismarcks conquest of Middle Europe. San Marino and the Vatican survived Garibaldi and
Victor Emmanuel IIs reunification of Italy. Andorra has remained tucked away in the Pyrenees
since the middle ages and Monaco has remained independent, squeezed between the mountains
and the sea in what would otherwise be southern France. Even the Sovereign Military Order of
Malta managed to outlast the conquest of its namesake island by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Though the Republic of Malta S.M.O.M.s eventual successor to the islands
governance was not in existence before the French and subsequently British conquest of the
island, it has effectively taken control of the same lands that the S.M.O.M. controlled, just with a
different government. In other words, the polity was restored after its conquest, but with a new
government form.

Murphy 18
The governments of these states are rare in the modern world. The Vatican maintains a
monarchial theocracy run by the Pope. Andorra is ruled by a council and two Co-Princes, who
are the heads of state; one is the President of France43 and the other is the Bishop of Urgell.
Luxembourg is a grand duchy, both Liechtenstein and Monaco are principalities, and the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a sovereign knighthood, led by a Grand Master. Only Malta
and San Marino are republics, the latter being the worlds oldest.
Luxembourg is the largest of these states; its land area surpasses the 1,000 km2 limit that
most of the microstates fall under.44 However, because it shares characteristics with this unique
group of European states, it can be categorized as a microstate. For example, aside from its relic
government structure, Luxembourg is also a tax haven45 and has a very low population (at
approximately 520,000),46 two traits common amongst the European Remnant Sovereign
Protected Systems. Also, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg is a primate city,47 which means the
population, culture, and economic activity of the state is effectively centered in one place,
making Luxembourg essentially a city-state.
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, by contrast, is the smallest of the Europes
microstates and arguably the smallest state in the world.48 Though it no longer controls any land,
the governmental institution has survived, recognized by many states, keeping sovereignty under

43

As the successor to the Count of Foix. This makes the French people the only in the world who elect a head of
state of another sovereign polity.
44
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
45
Congressional Research Service. Tax Havens: International Tax Avoidance and Evasion, by Jane G. Gravelle.
CRS Report R40623. January 23, 2013. PDF file. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40623.pdf. (Accessed
December 12, 2014).
46
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
47
Eun Jin Jang. Primate City. Sage Knowledge. Sage-eReference.com. http://www.sageereference.com/view/urbanstudies/n217.xml. (Accessed December 12, 2014).
48
This is a title often claimed by the Vatican. Because S.M.O.M. has no land area, it is arguably to be examined
separately from the Vatican. Therefore, it is correct to call either the smallest state in the world.

Murphy 19
the constitutive method by maintaining diplomatic relations with 105 other states.49 Its
government consists of a Sovereign Council and Grand Master, the leaders of a medieval
organization of knights.50 By this status, the S.M.O.M. must be considered a European Remnant
Sovereign System and a microstate.
Excluded Polities
Of course, these measurements are still imperfect. I believe they go a long way in
accurately enumerating the worlds microstates, but there are arguments to be made that many
other states exhibit the properties of microstates. As was previously mentioned, Iceland, Belize,
The Bahamas, Brunei, Vanuatu all have populations under 500,000.51 Brunei is very small, as are
a number of other states; in fact, Mauritius, and Comoros are both smaller in land area than
Luxembourg.52 Vanuatu and The Bahamas are also spread out over archipelagos, similarly to the
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates. Lesotho is similar to San Marino and the Vatican as one of
the few states completely surrounded by another.53
These states were left out because the line has to be drawn somewhere. There may very
well be other categories in which we can observe microstatehood; the concept deserves further
investigation. Until then, the list of microstates given in this essay54 is sufficiently
comprehensive.
Up until this point, only sovereign states have been considered for microstatehood. But
sovereign polities are not the only small places in the world. Macau, Hong Kong, and Gibraltar
come to mind as three miniature polities with significant differences between the systems within
49

Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. john of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. Bilateral Relations.
Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. john of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta. Government.
http://www.orderofmalta.int/the-order-and-its-institutions/335/government/?lang=en. (Accessed December 12,
2014).
51
See Table 3 - Low-Population States with Land Areas Greater than 1,000 km2.
52
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
53
San Marino and the Vatican are surrounded on all sides by Italy. Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa.
54
See Table 4 Microstates by Region.
50

Murphy 20
their borders and those of their mother countries.55 Furthermore, there are hundreds of miniature
exclaves and island groups that are distinct from the states to which they are constituent, such as
the Faroe Islands (Denmark), Ceuta and Melilla (Spain), the Channel Islands (United Kingdom),
and Sint Maarten (The Netherlands). Interestingly, as I will expatiate below, many of these small
polities are also tax havens.56
Micronations
A counterpart to microstates without which no discussion of the topic can be complete
are micronations. That term is a bit of a misnomer, as micronations are not really nations at all
in fact they often have real populations of just dozens of people. Micronations are better
described as project states. These are small properties, islands, or regions that individuals have
claimed to be independent, without any international recognition and usually without even de
facto independence. On occasion, these places have some stretch of legal claim to independence.
The Principality of Sealand is one of the best known micronations; it also has one of the
strongest claims to sovereignty. Approximately 8 miles off the southeastern coast of England, an
old British fort, abandoned after World War II, rises from the North Sea. The fort looks more
like an oil platform than anything else, but it was on this platform that an Englishman named
Roy Bates founded a new principality in 1967. When Bates fired upon British boats that
approached the fortress, he was brought before a judge in England, who ruled that his court had
no jurisdiction over Sealand, an act which Bates used to claim de facto recognition of Sealand by
the United Kingdom. This claim is bolstered by the fact that Sealand was in international waters
when it was founded.57 Though its territory is artificial, which conflicts with the U.N. Law on the

55

Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions in China. Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory.
Congressional Research Service. Tax Havens, by Jane G. Gravelle.
57
Principality of Sealand. About. SealandGov.org. http://www.sealandgov.org/about. (Accessed December 12,
2014).
56

Murphy 21
Sea,58 it existed before the law was enacted, giving Bates his legal claim that this was terra
nullius.59 Ultimately, Sealand has not been officially recognized by any other state, falling short
of the constitutive method of sovereignty. Furthermore, the Principalitys population fluctuates
significantly, disqualifying it by the declarative method.
Sealand is accompanied by several other famous microstates, each with their own
histories and claims to sovereignty. Some of the most famous are the Principality of Seborga, the
Principality of the Hutt River, and the Kingdom of Elleore.60 Even in the United States there are
micronations, such as the Republic of Molossia, in Nevada. This micronation is run by its
President, Kevin Baugh.61 Many of these purported states issue passports, stamps, and titles of
nobility. All claim in some measure ranging from serious to tourist gimmick62 to be
independent and sovereign.
Corporations, Social Media, & Online States
It is worth mentioning that there are organizations and systems in the world that have no
claims to sovereignty, but can be global actors and exhibit properties similar to microstates. For
example, if Walmart were a state, it would have one of the highest gross domestic products in the
world, larger than that of Norway. Exxon has an annual GDP greater than Thailand; Chevrons
surpasses the Czech Republic.63 Though corporations are not sovereign, they are world actors,
whose decisions have major implications on the world economy. If being sovereign means a
body has supreme control over itself, consider the following: Walmart is not able to make laws

58

United Nations. "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Part V: Exclusive Economic Zone." UN.org.
http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/closindx.htm. (Accessed October 28, 2014).
59
Principality of Sealand. About.
60
In Italy, Australia, and Denmark, respectively. For more, see <http://micronations.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page>.
61
Republic of Molossia. General Information. Molossia.org. http://www.molossia.org/information.html.
(Accessed December 13, 2014).
62
The Conch Republic was declared in Key West, FL, U.S.A. as a tourist attraction.
63
Vincent Trevitt. 25 US Mega Corporations: Where They Rank If They Were Countries. BusinessInsider.com.
http://www.businessinsider.com/25-corporations-bigger-tan-countries-2011-6?op=1. (Accessed December 13, 2014).

Murphy 22
unless they use their money and power to influence public officials, which is not unheard of in
the confluence of the corporate and political worlds but they exist in an economy global
enough and traversable enough to pick and choose the countries in which to base their factories,
retailers, and headquarters. In a sense, they can choose the laws the follow from the options
presented by each individual state, even if they cannot make their own.
Consider world actors beyond corporations; Twitters online population is so large (at
284 million monthly users)64 that it would be the worlds fourth largest state.65 Facebook is even
larger its monthly users check in at 1.35 billion66 which would make it the second largest or
largest state in the world, about the same size as China.67 Though they have no territory, they are
mediums, even communities through which global changes can occur; Facebooks role in the
Arab Spring proved that.68
Though it seems a strange notion, online states are not without precedent. Many
micronations exist online69 (though these are often the least serious of the lot). Even amongst
internationally recognized sovereign states, integration with the internet is increasing. Estonia
issued this year its first e-residency card, official government documentation, existing
completely over the internet, which gives the holder access to a number of social, financial, and
business options afforded to Estonian citizens and residents.70 Eventually, a person will be able
to become an e-resident of Estonia without ever setting foot there. Though voting rights are still
64

Twitter, Inc. Company. About.Twitter.com. https://about.twitter.com/company. (Accessed December 13, 2014).

Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
66
Facebook. Company Info. Newsroom.FB.com. http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/. (Accessed December
13, 2014).
67
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
68
Facebook and other social media sites have long been credited with facilitating the spread of the Arab Spring in
2010-2011. For more, see <http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/facebook-and-twitter-key-to-arab-springuprisings-report> and other sources.
69
The Kingdom of Lovely is a premier example of an online micronation, though it was mostly founded in comedy.
70
Friedman, Uri. The World Now Has Its First E-Resident. TheAtlantic.com.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/the-world-has-its-first-eresident/383277/?single_page=true. (Accessed December 13, 2014).
65

Murphy 23
restricted to full citizens a status which is not yet available online Eric Schnurer argues that
this shift toward the internet is slowly erasing national borders.71
Unmasking Sovereignty, Constructing Borders
I mention these bodies as increasingly bizarre as they may seem because they expose
the gray areas of sovereignty. In trying to define microstates, a line is drawn between states and
multinational organizations, movement toward online statehood, and micronations; where this
line is etched on maps, minds, and Earth, the threshold of sovereignty is revealed. There is some
trait or traits belonging to microstates, but not to these smaller bodies, the possession of which
makes one group sovereign and relegates the rest to an inferior status. Because microstates exist
at the fringes of the international political system, they have much to tell us about it.
Microstates are places where the landscape is defined by the interruption of socially
constructed borders. 72 In these landscapes, any differences can potentially be attributed to one of
the only and most dominant independent variables present: the small sovereign systems and their
cordoning, manufactured borders. The fact that microstates are only different from their
surrounding landscapes because they are in different systems of sovereignty exposes the effects
of this on the cultural, economic, and social landscapes of the world. Preliminary exploration of
these effects offers some interesting topics for further research.
Transforming the Map
Microstates and other small polities tend to be home to some of the worlds wealthiest
citizens or some of its poorest. According to the CIA World Factbook, Liechtenstein is the
second richest state per capita, with a per capita GDP of roughly $89,400 USD. So Tom and
71

Schnurer, Eric. Welcome to E-stonia: Estonia shows what virtual citizenship could look like. U.S. News &
World Report. USNews.com. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/eric-schnurer/2014/12/04/estonias-ecitizenship-may-mark-the-beginning-of-the-virtual-state. (Accessed December 13, 2014).
72
This is especially true of the microstates not belonging to the Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministate and MicroIsland categories; in these places, not just borders, but also oceans separate the microstate from other states.

Murphy 24
Prncipe, by contrast, has a per capita GDP of only $2,200 USD. Though some of the IndoPacific Archipelago Ministates and Micro-Islands are extremely impoverished, 7 of the 10
richest states are either microstates or microstate-sized non-sovereign polities.73
As the table of world tax havens shows below, many of the worlds microstates are also
tax havens. In fact, 22 of the 30 microstates in the world are tax havens and an additional 13 of
the tax havens would be microstates if they were sovereign; that makes 35 of the 47 tax havens
approximately 74% microstates or potential microstates. This displays a clear effect on the
world economic landscape by the bounding of such small amounts of land by national borders.

73

Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: GDP - per Capita (PPP). CIA.gov | The World Factbook.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html. (Accessed December 13,
2014).

Murphy 25

Table 6 Tax Havens 74

74

Congressional Research Service. Tax Havens, by Jane G. Gravelle.

Murphy 26
Anguilla (United Kingdom)*
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba (The Netherlands)*
The Bahamas
Barbados
British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)*
Cayman Islands (United Kingdom)*
Dominica
Grenada
Montserrat (France)*
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Turks and Caicos (United Kingdom)*
U.S. Virgin Islands (United States)*
Belize
Costa Rica
Panama
Hong Kong SAR (China)*
Macau SAR (China)*
Singapore
Andorra
Channel Islands (United Kingdom)*
Cyprus

Gibraltar (United Kingdom)*

Isle of Man (United Kingdom)*
Ireland
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta
Monaco
San Marino
Switzerland
Maldives
Mauritius
Seychelles
Bahrain
Jordan
Lebanon
Bermuda (United Kingdom)*
Cook Islands
Marshall Islands
Samoa
Nauru
Niue
Tonga
Vanuatu

Bolded states are sovereign. Blue filling denotes microstates. States marked with
an asterisk (*) would be microstates (at least as Ministates) if granted
sovereignty. Listings are in the order given in CRS report.

The worlds cultural landscape is skewed by microstates as well. Many microstates are
linguistically diverse. Luxembourg boasts the highest median number of languages spoken by its
people (4) in the European Union.75 In the summer of 2014, I met a bartender in Luxembourg
who spoke 7 languages French, Luxembourgish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and English a
talent that is much more common at the crux of Europe where Luxembourg lies than in the
United States. Luxembourg is not big enough for its national language to disseminate far beyond
its borders, but it is very close to Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United
Kingdom, and others, whose influences are strong enough to make their national languages
useful knowledge in the Grand Duchy. In Monaco, English, Italian, French, and Monegasque can
75

Marian, Jakub. Average Number of Languages Spoken by the EU Population. JakubMarian.com.

http://jakubmarian.com/average-number-of-languages-spoken-by-the-eu-population/. (Accessed December 13,
2014).

Murphy 27
all be heard.76 On the other side of the world, Singapores citizens speak English, Malay, Tamil,
and Mandarin Chinese, along with a host of linguistic dialects.77 Inversely, I have already
discussed how Nauru speaks a language not closely related to its neighbors, a factor of its small
size and isolation.78
Many of these places have also become huge tourist destinations, with tourism making up
a significant portion of their economies. This is especially true about the European Remnant
Sovereign Systems and the Caribbean Micro-Islands. The Caribbean states offer tropical
getaways, Andorra and Liechtenstein have mountains for skiing, and the Vatican has the Pope;
arguably the tourist economies of these states are not dependent on the fact that they are
independent. However, in places like San Marino and Monaco, that independence is either an
attraction by itself or the system through which these microstates create an atmosphere
conducive to tourism; Monaco has in this way built a thriving casino tourism industry.
These microcosms of culture often have unique political systems. As we have seen, the
European Remnant Sovereign Systems are run by governments of princes, grand dukes, and
small republican councils.79 These governments, though often smaller than some municipalities,
have to engage in relations on the world stage. The United States does not have an embassy in
San Marino, Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein; these relations are left to the ambassadors of Italy,
France, Spain, and Switzerland, respectively.80 However, these states do send representatives to
the United Nations, unless they have given another state the task of representing them

76

Arnold, M. Cameron. Monaco. EveryCulture.com. http://www.everyculture.com/Ma-Ni/Monaco.html.

(Accessed December 13, 2014).
77
Rgger, Benedicte B. Singapore. EveryCulture.com. http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Singapore.html.
(Accessed December 13, 2014).
78
See Micro-Islands above.
79
See European Remnant Sovereign Systems above.
80
U.S. Department of State. Embassies, Consulates, and Diplomatic Missions. USEmbassy.gov.
http://www.usembassy.gov/europe.html. (Accessed December 13, 2014).

Murphy 28
internationally,81 though their ambassadors to this international body are not always natives. For
example, San Marinos ambassador to the U.N., Daniel D. Bodini, is a native Italian.82 Even if he
or she is not a native to the microstate, the ambassador of the worlds tiniest states brings
disproportional representation to the international community.
When most microstates were finally admitted to the United Nations in the late 1980s and
1990s,83 the system came under fire for being unfair to the larger states.84 Each state at the
United Nations has one vote, which means that Chinas vote represents approximately
1,355,692,576 people, but Naurus only represents around 9,488.85 That gives a Nauruan
142,885 times the representation that a Chinese citizen has. Microstates clearly shape the worlds
political landscapes; just how warrants even more exploration.
Conclusion
Microstates are fascinating anomalies of the world political system. Their small territorial
possessions bend and shape the cultural, political, and economic landscapes of the Caribbean,
Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Despite their importance, they are exceedingly
difficult to define. With so many ways to measure the size of a state and so many places with
debatable statehood the term microstate bears with it a number of complications.
These complications are minimized by considering microstates to be all of the states
constituent to a number of groups, each with a distinct definition.
Amended Dumieski Modern Protected States are sovereign states that have been able to either
formally or informally, and/or unilaterally depute certain attributes of sovereignty to larger
81

Such as in the case of Niue and the Cook Islands, which are represented by New Zealand.
Columbia University in the City of New York, Columbia Business School. Daniel D. Bodini. Columbia.edu.
https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/about-us/board/daniele-bodini. (Accessed December 13, 2014).
83
Many of the European microstates joined in the early 90s. The last microstate to join the U.N. was Tuvalu in
2000.
84
Wiznitzer, Louis. Controversy brews over role of micro-states in UN. The Christian Science Monitor.
CSMonitor.com. http://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0327/032752.html. (Accessed December 13, 2014).
85
Central Intelligence Agency. Country Comparison :: Population.
82

Murphy 29
powers in exchange for benign protection of their political and economic viability, against
their geographic or demographic constraints.
European Remnant Sovereign Systems are states that are left over from the time when Europe
was covered in smaller principalities, duchies, and city-states, which have either gone
unconquered by Europes larger powers or have been restored to independence as similar
city-states, the government systems of which are generally reminiscent of a feudal Europe.
Hyper-Dense Ministates are states that have land areas less than 1,000 km2 and more than 400
people per square kilometer within their borders.
Ministates are states with land areas of less than 1,000 km2.
Micro-islands are states comprised of a single island or small group of major islands, which are
not connected to a major land mass by bridge, that have land areas under 1,000 km2.
Indo-Pacific Archipelago Ministates are states made up of archipelagos with land areas of under
1,000 km2.
These definitions categorize the worlds microstates, creating a sufficiently
comprehensive list of their status in the modern world. To what extent these definitions extend
backward through time is unclear; European Remnant Sovereign Systems, for example, were not
unusual in the 15th Century and not significantly smaller than their neighbors. Perhaps
microstates are an invention of modern times.86 What defining microstates does show is that they
offer a window through which a number of facets of the modern world can be studied.
They exhibit the threshold of sovereignty. In distinguishing them from multinational
corporations, online communities, and especially micronations, we are brought closer to finding
the line, the trait, the limit by which a body exhibits sovereignty.

86

The Republic of Cospaia is an interesting example of a microstate that was most certainly micro at its time. For
more, see <http://www.umbriatouring.it/en/lincredibile-storia-di-cospaia/>.

Murphy 30
The tight borders of microstates bound laboratories, in which the differences caused by
granting a region independence and sovereignty can be studied. They shape the economic
landscapes as tax havens, hyper-rich territories, and tourism destinations. They shape the cultural
landscapes as language hubs and cultural centers. They shape the political landscapes by
preserving small governments and giving disproportionate international representation to those
who find themselves within their boundaries. For these reasons and many more, it is important to
study microstates. First, they had to be defined; seeking and creating this definition outlines just
how these specks on maps, these tiniest states in the world system, can be enumerated and
explored.

Murphy 31
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Murphy 32
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Murphy 35
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