Micro-nations

This sign marks the entrance to a tiny proto-state within the small country of Moldova.

The California secessionist movement has its own foreign embassy, in Russia of all places.

An unrecognized nation-state created in the 1820s to avoid taxes.

The largest piece of no man's land left on Earth.

Ruins of a former government building destroyed during the Georgian-Abkhaz war in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union.

An unrecognized micronation declared by Greenpeace to protect the glaciers of Chile.

This micronation's flag honors its favorite drink, Kaffegöken, or "cuckoo-coffee."

The smallest country in Australia is a principled little thing with a friendly emperor.

A failed utopia, shut down by a more legitimate nation.

The most peaceful "country" in the Middle East.

A self-proclaimed libertarian micro-state on a tiny bit of disputed territory between Serbia and Croatia.

A proto micro-nation sometimes populated by artists, surrounded on all sides by a Utah most barren.

Once known throughout Europe, this tiny and unusually progressive 18th century micro-nation within Lithuania now lies in ruins.

This micro-nation may be some sort of prank, but its constitution sure seems official.