How and why do tiny countries like Singapore and Monaco exist? Why aren’t they just a part of the larger country surrounding them?
In: 342
Depends on the history.
Sometimes it used to be part of a larger empire that collapsed. Other times it used to be a colony. They could also be the result of civil wars, land deals, etc.
In Monaco’s case, it was a gift from some French monarch to Genoa. It used to be French, then they gave it away for some reason. It became a colony, and that colony later became independent.
In Singapore’s case, the British wanted a trade port in the area, so they purchased the area and operated it as a colony. Then Singapore got independence.
It depends on the states around it. Monaco is independent because it managed to switch loyalties just right to avoid being conquered for long enough for it to become a bad look to unilaterally annex another state. Singapore is independent because it had too many Chinese people in it, so Malaysia kicked them out of the country. Not the Chinese, they kicked out Singapore.
History Matters has great videos explaining this topic for both [Monaco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPkZefBA7v8) and [Singapore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSI0WSCVHnU).
I’d love to explain any other territorial anomalies you might wonder about. The answer to “Why is this microstate still independent?” is usually “Circumstance and a lot of luck”.
How they came to exist is a historical question that’s unique to each country and can’t really be simplified here because, well, it’s unique to each country. Ultimately, they’re independent either because they didn’t want to be annexed, no other country wanted to annex them, or both.
Singaporean here. We were previously part of another bigger country, Malaysia. But due to political and racial differences (oversimplifying a lot here) Singapore got expelled from the Malaysian Federation and became independent by ourselves.
There wasn’t any real impetus to merge with another country. We’re an island that isn’t contiguous with anywhere else. And the next nearest neighbour, Indonesia, pretty much fought an undeclared war/state-sponsored terrorism in the past few years, so no we weren’t joining them.
Singapore just focused on surviving as a microstate, and somehow we did. It definitely helped that being small and having only a couple of million people isn’t too hard to govern
Alright, so what about Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and Lesotho?
Same reason I can’t consider my neighbor’s car part of my house (even if she does park on my side of the yard all the time…) It’s theirs and they want it and they have it.
If your city was its own little country within whatever larger country you’re in with its own history, culture, language maybe, traditions, civic institutions, etc., would you be cool with the larger country simply absorbing your little home?
The answer for European ones is that the entirety of Europe was divided into royal counties that became vassals to larger kingdoms at certain times. You might have small countries like Andorra that maintained their independent royal title and thus could remain independent from larger kingdoms. In the 19th century you had the emergence of a nation-state and a lot of these small principalities simply became their own nation-states.
For the rest of the world the answer is “The British Empire” and all those other lesser European Empires. The British were the single largest empire in the world at their peak. Before their peak Britain kind of just placed little itty bitty colonies all around the world. They exist as they are today because of the separate administrative divisions between the old rulers of those lands (The French, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Russians, Americans etc.).
For example South Africa was originally four different administrative divisions that unified to become the “Cape Province” and eventually South Africa. Awkwardly and directly in the middle of this new South Africa was the administrative district of Lesotho who created their own monarch in the early 1800s who ran the British administration. When they sought independence the new royal family saw no need to secede their territory to South Africa (which was having problems with the Dutch Boers).
Hey Putin, bored and on Reddit today?
This is just a joke. I don’t think you’re like Putin at all
A lot of it goes back to the feudal system of landed titles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial,_royal_and_noble_ranks
So back in 963 someones little brother becomes a Count and is granted a title to this land called “Lucilinburhuc” (Little Castle). And he passes this to his heirs. And one of those heirs becomes a King, and then actually becomes the Holy Roman Emperor.
And this little piece of land continued to pass down in history to 3 other Emperors. And with all the wealth in this family they kept building and improving the castle to become one of the strongest in Europe. Eventually the land title was upgraded to a “duchy” and so the holder became a Duke. Dukes are almost like mini-kings and have all kinds of rights and power in the feudal world.
Well this guy called Napoleon eventually showed up and wasn’t a big fan of the feudal system but he was totally a fan of military conquest. He took over this little territory for a while but all the Royal families of Europe really did not like Napoleon taking away their land and titles so they teamed up and took him down.
So the title and land went back to the original family after. But that family didn’t have an Empire anymore. So it was in this weird legal limbo. Some of the biggest Empires (Prussia/ England) that beat Napoleon tried to argue that this castle and land should now belong to them. But they worked out a compromise to let it be an independent ally.
Later Belgium became a country and tried to say “hey this is part of our place”. But the Duke of this castle was actually King of the Dutch. He 100% did not agree to give away his castle to Belgium. So it stayed his and never got added to Belgium. But keep in mind, this Castle belongs to the King personally. It doesn’t actually belong to the Dutch and it’s not a part of that “Kingdom” even though the Duke of the Castle and the King of the Dutch are the same guy.
There were more wars and disagreements, (the Hitler dude was especially bad news) but basically the owners of this land stayed powerful enough but also neutral enough that their castle and land was never permanently and legally absorbed into one of the bigger countries around them.
And so, today, we have the independent state of Luxembourg.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg
It’s a question of history that lead to their independence. The Vatican, for example, used to be a much larger state that ruled over most of Central Italy until the Italian Wars of Unification dismantled their empire piece by piece, leaving the Pope besieged in Vatican until they signed the Lateran Treaty in 1929, with both countries recognizing each other’s existence.
Similarly, Singapore used to be a part of the British Empire then of the Malaysian Federation before they split due to political tension.
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