Principality of Sealand

The Principality of Sealand is a self-proclaimed micronation occupying HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II naval platform in the North Sea off the eastern coast of England. The structure, two concrete towers supporting a steel deck, stands on a sandbank that lay beyond Britain’s territorial waters at the time it was built.

The fort was claimed in 1967 by Paddy Roy Bates, a former pirate-radio broadcaster, who proclaimed it an independent principality and styled himself its prince. Sealand took on the trappings of a sovereign state: a flag, a constitution, a national motto (“E Mare Libertas”, “From the Sea, Freedom”) and its own stamps, coins and passports. An early English court case found that the platform lay outside the United Kingdom’s jurisdiction at the time, a ruling its founders still cite in support of their claim.

Run as a hereditary principality by the Bates family, Sealand sustains itself partly by conferring noble titles on supporters around the world. No sovereign state recognises its independence, and it is widely regarded as the world’s best-known micronation and an often-cited case study in international law.