Taking advantage of a small (only Monaco and the Vatican are smaller) piece of Europe that is apparently unclaimed by either of its neighbors, Croatia and Serbia, a Czech politician named VÍt Jedlička has proclaimed the Republic of Liberland and invited applications for citizenship. The official languages are Czech and English, but the national website (liberland.org) has discussion forums in other languages as well.
He’s already written a constitution (“constitutional republic with elements of direct democracy”), a coat of arms, a flag, and a national anthem. He’s even defined who are Liberland’s unwanted immigrants (“do not have communist, nazi or other extremist past,” “were not punished for past criminal offences.”) Over 250,000 request for citizenship are said to have been received. Below, the National Anthem and flag…
While nothing’s been announced yet about a tourism board, how far behind can that be? Of course, there will need to be efforts to put the new nation on the map. Literally on the map, since Google has apparently lined up with other nations and does not (yet) recognize Liberland. But it does offer a ray of hope to do-it-yourself cartographers:
