Talk:Microstate

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Contents 1 (no header) 2 more confusion 3 Map 4 Temporary minor states 5 Problem of Definition 6 A minor point re: naming

[edit] (no header)

Just out of curiosity: how small must a microstate be to be considered one? (Is Luxembourg a microstate?) D.D. 11:49 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Sealand, which is listed on the micronation page, has been recognised by the courts of Britain and Germany to be a sovereign state, and thus should rightly be on the Microstate page, not the Micronation page. It has also been recognised by the British Home Office. In this, Sealand has as much right to claim sovereign status, and be categorized as a microstate, as the Knights of Malta. More, even, since Sealand at least has sovereign territory, while the SMOM does not beyond an 'embassy' in Rome. - Mike Lorrey 18:26 1/27/05 EST

Do you have any reference for these classifications? David.Monniaux 14:35, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would be happy to see references.

Who uses this term?
Ruhrjung 01:05, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

This term is used in geography. However, it's difficult to find a definition on the Web. For example, here [1], [2] , [3] microstate is defined as a country with population of less than a million people. In this paper there is some interesting background of the term and another definition (population os less then a 1.5 million pepople) TG 18:30, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Such arbitrary population standards are unsupported by history. Before the US Constitution was ratified, the freed colonies were all fully sovereign governments, most of less than 1 million population. Were they 'microstates'? I think it is clear that if a state gains diplomatic recognition by any nation that is widely recognised itself, then the new nation should be considered a state. If it's small, call it a microstate. And I don't care if they take a frivolous attitude to governance either. If more nations took their nationhood a little less seriously, there'd be a lot less strife in the world.Mike Lorrey 01:32, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Another point of contention: I also believe it is improper to count historically real nations that once existed as 'micronations', particularly those that held significant amounts of territory, like Sarawak or the Indian Stream Republic, which would today rival many fully recognised minor nations like Bhutan, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Brunei, etc. 155.212.77.162 01:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's inappropriate to use population criteria listed above for historical nations. The 1 million people limit can be applied exclusively to modern states. The term microstate is used to classify states and it's meaning depends on the goal of classification.

In modern economical and social geography population limit of 1 million people is appropriate. In some cases it's possible to use territory area to classify states (A micro-state then, is usually a state that is no bigger then Luxemburg). But historically this term was used together with the concept of "great powers" in Europe. I do not see how any of these definitions is relevant to historical nations in general. TG 09:39, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] more confusion

The term microstate is sometimes confused with the term micronation. The distinction is that the former are recognized as sovereign states whereas the latter are not.

There are three distinct things here, which the foregoing serves only to smoosh together:

1. a micro-state which is recognized by other countries
2. a micro-state which is not generally recognized (or only recognized by one country)
3. the silly idea of "micronations" which some Internet jokers are trying to spread and legitimize.

We should:

• distinguish between the micro-states and the "micronation" idea
• avoid endorses micronations as "real" or investing them with the trappings of micro-states, such as taxoboxes, coats of arms, etc.
• just say that certain people have declared certain apartments, oil rigs, sunken barges, etc., as having sovereignty - without endorsing or condemning these assertions.
• report on how the rest of the world reacts to, or deals with, these three types of things.

And I could use some help with this, because it's all tangled up - especially Sealand. Uncle Ed July 8, 2005 22:17 (UTC)

In case you want it, I suggest the following to add after the main body of the article. It adds confusion rather than clarifies, but it does bring up a few important points in terms of questioning definitions:

The distinction, however, is not always an easy one. The Principality of Sealand for example has been recognised as an independent territory by British courts, but is most often classified as a micronation. Further, labelling a country a micronation merely because it is not recognised poses the problem of countries such as Northern Cyprus (which is recognised only by Turkey, but is definitely not considered a micronation).

Most micronations lack actual territory to claim sovereignty over, but this is not a sufficient means to distinguish them from microstates either, since this would mean classifying a micronation such as Hutt River Province as being a microstate.

- Aridd, July 27th 2005

I was going to provide a scenario to demonstrate the microstate/micronation ambiguity, but it seems unecessary since there are numerous ones cited above. jmd 06:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That's not really true about Sealand. It wasn't decided by the highest court in the land, and it even appears that the judge based his findings on a misunderstanding of fact. It wad court, not courts. You can bet your last dollar that if anything slightly dodgy was to happen at Sealand the British navy would have it under their control almost immediately. The 'sovereignty' of 'Sealand' is an interesting fallacy. Sealand has no military and no allies, and is essentially powerless whatever a district court might have said. --kingboyk 00:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Anyone notice that Hong Kong and Macau are both on the microstate map even though they are not sovereign states? Some one needs to fix that.

[edit] Temporary minor states

Can someone put in links from here to the lists of minor states and Soviet states that existed mostly in the period 1917-23? Came across them the other day and cannot seem to find the lists again - Green Ukraine and Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918) were on the lists) - and people generally might wish to explore the topic. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Problem of Definition

It seems problematic to me that we're discussing whether to call Luxembourg, or any other country past or present, a microstate. That really isn't something we at Wikipedia should even be discussing. Because we're an encyclopedia, whether or not Luxembourg is a microstate isn't up to us at all. If there's some difference of opinion outside of the Wikipedia community, then our article should describe that difference of opinion. We shouldn't be discussing amongst ourselves whether to include Luxembourg.

I came to this conclusion when I consulted Wikipedia to find out how a microstate is defined. I found this article, but it didn't actually include a hard and fast definition that I could take to the bank, so to speak. If there is no single, specific, and widely accepted definition of a microstate, then we need to lay out, as clearly and unambiguously as possible, the issues central to the debate. If there is a single, specific, and widely accepted definition, then we need to stick to it and let it tell us what countries to include. —CKA3KA (Skazka) (talk) 19:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A minor point re: naming

I did two Google Books searches for "micro-state/microstate" and "mini-state/ministate", using the first five states listed here.([4], [5]) The results showed that the difference in frequency of these two sets of terms is not significant (187 to 146), according to Wikipedia's naming conventions (such as WP:UE). Thus, I thought it proper to give them equal billing in the first sentence. SamEV (talk) 18:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)