What does your micronation need?

We are moderately active in a couple of micronational-focused Facebook groups.  It seems like every week, someone pops in and says something along the lines of "Hi, I want to create my own micronation, I need help with...." (basically everything).

Okay, first off, please go to this site, there are lots of resources there for starting your own micronation, including a model constitution, some "food for thought" to get you thinking about the form of your micronation, and a few other interesting links.  Plus, it was set up by the President of Molossia, so he knows something about what he's talking about.

Moving past that, what makes you a micronation?  Personally, We like to define a micronation as an "intentional community" - the usual definition is that it's a "planned residential community, designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork".  In this instance, though, We would prefer to remove the word "residential", because not all micronations live together under one roof.  Other than that, though, the definition works for most micronations - they are planned communities that have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork."

From this, you might be able to infer the most important component of a micronation, at least as far as We are concerned - people.  Like-minded people, gathering under a common banner because they want to be there, to hopefully build something larger than themselves.

Can you be a micronation of one?  Sure you can!  However, you're going to be awfully busy being the "chief cook and bottle washer", as the saying goes.  The more people assisting you, the more fully you can explore different facets of nationhood.  You don't need to have twenty thousand citizens like Ladonia, but having at least a few friends along for the ride will make things easier in the long run.

In fact, We would argue that having too many citizens can be a detriment to micronations in some instances.  For instance it makes it difficult for everyone to take a truly active role in the running of the micronation - and may in fact encourage the "riding of coat-tails" in some.  Additionally, depending on how you are allowing people to become citizens, it's possible for an organized group to "stuff the ballot boxes" and take over your micronation, subsuming what you've built up.  We are not saying these things are necessarily show-stoppers against having a large micronation, just that you should be aware of the potential for these abuses, and create safe-guards well in advance.