Eli5: why does the country Liechtenstein exist? It’s an incredibly small country in Europe, why isn’t it just part of Switzerland or Austria?
In: 6939
Originally, there were many, many such small kingdoms in Europe, ruled by powerful local families.
The land was bought by the House of Liechtenstein, and nominally ruled by the Holy Roman Empire, but became a sovereign state in 1806, as part of a loose German confederation
During the first and second world wars, many small states were eaten up by larger ones. However, Liechtenstein never really caused any problems for other countries, and kept itself to itself, and so there were always bigger fish to fry, and it remained self sufficient. It didn’t have any great wealth or natural resources.
It was just too much effort for any other country to bother annexing it.
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