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Wendover Productions - How to Create a Country

Thumbnail of the video “Wendover Productions - How to Create a Country”
Community upload. AI output has not been independently verified.
Author: Wendover Productions
Categories: News & Politics
Tags: news
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-16 10:03 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: To create a country, you need a piece of land, a permanent population, a well-formed government, a constitution, and, most importantly, international recognition, ideally by admission to the United Nations. The video argues that statehood is defined mainly by whether other countries agree to recognize you, which is why counts of countries range from 189 to 196.

Key Points

  • Statehood is not defined by a single rule; recognition by other countries is the deciding factor, so a territory can be "a country" to some states and not others.
  • Unclaimed land is rare because of satellite imaging and modern cartography, and claims like Liberland (on the Croatia-Serbia border along the Danube) have gained no international recognition.
  • New nations usually succeed by splitting from an existing state with local popular backing, as with South Ossetia (recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru) and Palestine (recognized by 136 nations and designated a UN non-member observer state in 2012).
  • Antarctica is a poor option: the Antarctic Treaty bars new territorial claims, and without a permanent population or economy, a sustainable nation is near impossible.
  • Government legitimacy, grounded in John Locke's principles, depends on public belief and support; autocratic governments rarely work in modern society.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: The video's steps, in order, are: (1) secure a piece of land, either by claiming unclaimed territory or taking it by force (the video notes the latter is problematic and likely to be contested); (2) establish a permanent population, since a nation is created to serve its people; (3) build a well-formed government based on Locke's principles, where people support the government and rights to life, health, liberty, and possessions are protected; (4) write a constitution defining the laws, principles, and entities of the country; (5) gain international recognition from other nations, which the video says is the hardest step and can take hundreds of years; (6) apply for United Nations admission, which is reviewed by the Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK, US, plus 10 rotating members), requiring 10 of 15 votes in favor.
  • Liberland's land is about 17 times larger than the Vatican, the smallest recognized country, but it lacks a permanent population, and its founder's attempts to re-enter the territory have been blocked by Serbia and Croatia.
  • The Antarctic Treaty states that no new claim or enlargement of an existing claim may be asserted while it is in force; seven nations have pre-treaty claims, though their legitimacy is disputed.
  • Eleven babies have been born in Antarctica, but they generally took their parents' citizenship.
  • Serbia acknowledged Liberland did not infringe on its territory but dismissed the project as frivolous.
  • The video ends by mentioning the Strait of Gibraltar and the British territory of Gibraltar, which shares a land border with Spain, but the transcript does not elaborate on this.

Bottom Line

Creating a country is less about claiming land than about winning recognition: without a real population, public backing, and acceptance by other states, a self-declared nation remains a micronation.