Liberstad is a private, member-based settlement in the Agder region of southern Norway, founded by John Holmesland and Sondre Bjellås as a community organised around voluntary cooperation, private property and the non-aggression principle.
What Liberstad is
Liberstad is a private settlement in southern Norway, conceived as a community for people who organise their affairs around the non-aggression principle. It grew out of the libertarian idea that a town can be run as a voluntary association rather than as a public municipality: all of its land is privately owned, there is no public land and no public infrastructure, and it has no elected officials, no police with coercive powers and no state-backed courts. The project was started in 2015 by John Holmesland and Sondre Bjellås and took possession of its land in 2017.
Where Liberstad is
The settlement occupies some 350 hectares of wooded, largely off-grid land in the Agder region of southern Norway, in what was the municipality of Marnardal until it merged into Lindesnes in 2020. Kristiansand, the regional capital and its airport, lies to the south-east. The land was assembled in stages, the later part of it including a plot taken in a land swap at the end of 2022, and the main area is laid out as four districts: a central one for shops, administration and restaurants, a tourist district for festivals and camping, a housing district and a stretch kept for nature and recreation.
How Liberstad works
Liberstad is organised as a membership community, registered in Norway as the Liberstad Membership Organization. Residents and supporters join by application, sign an agreement and pay an annual fee, and receive an identity in the settlement’s own system, FreeID; a land registry, a zoning office and a security organisation run its internal affairs, with a dispute-resolution body in development. Shared services are arranged privately instead of funded through taxation, and common costs are met through voluntary contributions and the settlement’s own internal economy.
That economy uses its own unit of account, the Libra, issued by the Bank of Liberstad and expressly not a cryptocurrency or a financial instrument; an earlier cryptocurrency, City Coin, was adopted as the settlement’s currency in 2019. Norwegian planning law shapes the settlement’s form: land zoned for housing obliges its owner to live there permanently, so Liberstad is built as a cabin town, where that duty does not apply. It appeals to voluntaryists, anarcho-capitalists and others drawn to self-reliant living, and the founders’ long-term ambition is to grow it into a fully private city.
From our coverage
VideoLiberty in Our Lifetime 2024
Podcast Episode 67
Sondre Bjellås: Liberstad. The Norweigan Free City
Co-creator Sondre Bjellås on Liberstad, the Norwegian community built on non-aggression and voluntarism, and its latest progress.
VideoLiberty in Our Lifetime 2023
What people ask
Where is Liberstad?
In the Agder region of southern Norway, on a wooded farm property in the former municipality of Marnardal, now part of Lindesnes, north-west of Kristiansand.
What is Liberstad?
A private, member-based settlement founded on the non-aggression principle: all land is privately owned, there are no elected officials or public services, and shared costs are met by voluntary contributions.
Does Liberstad have its own currency?
It uses an internal unit of account, the Libra, issued by the Bank of Liberstad, which the settlement describes as neither a cryptocurrency nor a financial instrument. An earlier cryptocurrency, City Coin, was adopted in 2019.
Can anyone join Liberstad?
Membership is by application and subject to review; approved members pay an application fee and an annual fee and receive a FreeID. Liberstad sets out the steps on its own site.