You've almost certainly heard of some of Europe's smallest nations — San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Vatican City immediately spring to mind. But there are a host of other tiny, self-declared ...

The Principality of Sealand has its own flag, a white diagonal stripe dividing fields of red and black. It has currency, postage stamps, a national anthem (“E Mare Libertas,” which is also its ...

Prince Michael Bates, reigning monarch of the Principality of Sealand, has a unique plan if the British Navy rolls up to reclaim his micronation off England's coast: bring out his best china and make ...

The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, may have found a way out of its legal woes: buying its own country. The group has set up a fund to purchase Sealand, a former British naval platform in ...

Where do you go when you think it's crucial to provide access to ad-free episodes of Heroes but the rest of the world labels you a dirty pirate? If you're Swedish "intellectual property reform group" ...

We've seen bitcoin gaining traction among companies ranging from porn merchants through to car dealerships. But this may be the first time we've seen a country adopting it as a currency – well, a ...

A born swashbuckler, Paddy Roy Bates fought in the Spanish Civil War as a teenager, faced a Greek firing squad in World War II and had a German stick bomb explode in his face. But the sturdy Brit ...

The Principality of Sealand was born in 1967, when HM Fort Roughs was seized by World War Two veteran Roy Bates As a former World War Two sea fort, it is used to crashing waves, bitter winds and ...