Atlas Island is a seasteading project, founded in 2021 by members of The Seasteading Institute’s community, that plans to grow in stages from an online community into a floating city-state of privately operated platforms in international waters.
What Atlas Island is
Atlas Island is a seasteading project that aims to build a permanent floating community in international waters, beyond the jurisdiction of any existing state. It describes itself as an international community of people who believe in freedom and individual sovereignty, its principles are anarcho-capitalist, and its slogan is “vote with your boat”. It was founded in 2021 by ambassadors of The Seasteading Institute, took its name from the novel Atlas Shrugged, and set itself the goal of making seasteading a reality within ten years.
How Atlas Island works
The project envisions a gradual, staged path. It begins as an online community of like-minded people who refine the plans and work with the Seasteading Institute on flags and legal frameworks; it grows into a network of members living aboard vessels and in containerised buildings, then into marina communities in each region of the world, ideally beside Free Cities; from there into floating platforms anchored in coastal waters, and finally into platforms that move into international waters behind their own breakwaters. The final stage is a self-sustaining seastead that operates independently of onshore governments.
How Atlas Island will be governed
Atlas Island is imagined as a patchwork of free private cities on the water. Each platform is to be owned and operated privately, and the relationship between a platform and its residents is set out in a written Resident Contract that lists the services the operator provides and the user fees residents pay; the project is opposed to taxes and offers no citizenship, because it does not claim authority over anyone. Platforms would first fly flags of convenience chosen for the freedom they allow, with the eventual goal of declaring full autonomy under a flag of their own. A defining principle is exit: because residents own their own vessels or buildings, they are free to leave at any time and take their home, business and property with them.
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What people ask
What is Atlas Island?
A seasteading project founded in 2021 that plans, in five stages, to move its members from an online community onto vessels and containerised homes, then onto privately operated floating platforms in international waters.
Where will Atlas Island be?
No site has been chosen. Its marinas are planned near metropolitan areas and ideally in Free Cities, its first platforms in coastal waters, and its final settlement in open water with few hurricanes; the project points to the South Atlantic as one such region.
Will Atlas Island offer citizenship?
No. Because it does not claim authority over its residents, it offers a Resident Contract rather than citizenship: a written agreement setting out the platform’s services and the user fees that pay for them.