[Talk-us] The Republic of Molossia (and other micro-nations)

[Dave Swarthout]

IMO it seems absurd to condone this sort of mapping. It isn't accepted as a
sovereign nation by the U.S. government and probably does not exist on any
other reputable maps. Place=locality or place=neighbourhood would be fine
although even then the name Molossia is a pure invention. Native-American
areas are, on the contrary, recognized and hence deserving of such a
boundary tag. (I haven't checked this but assume its' the case).

Another issue is, where will it end? Can I feel free to create my own
"republic", e.g., the Republic of Swarthout?

My 2 cents

AlaskaDave

On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 5:51 AM, Bradley White <theangrytomato at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Something a little bit different:
>
> The Republic of Molossia is a self-declared "micro-nation" located
> near Dayton, NV, landlocked by the United States. The nation claims
> full sovereignty from the United States; however, it is recognized by
> neither the United States, nor any other country on Earth, as an
> independent nation. You have probably heard about it before, since it
> is one of the best-known examples of such a micro-nation in the US.
>
> Within the past few months, this "nation" has popped into OSM,
> complete with sloppily implemented "admin_level=2" and
> "boundary=national" tags, view-able here:
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/39.32281/-119.53908. My
> discussion point is whether this is a valid use of these tags. A
> handful of quick searches about this topic didn't turn up anything for
> me, so I'm assuming no precedent has been set yet. It is worth noting
> that this is not the only micro-nation in the US.
>
> I'm not inclined to think these tags are valid. Otherwise, there's
> nothing stopping me from calling my backyard its own nation, slapping
> together a wikipedia article, and entering it into OSM as a
> full-fledged nation. However, since they are still geographically
> based entities of interest to the public, I think they are worth
> mapping
>
> There is a proposal for disputed boundaries, but I don't think that's
> valid either since there isn't really a dispute. The nation has gone
> unacknowledged by the United States, and nothing has gone through the
> legal process between the two nations (that I'm aware of) that could
> constitute a "dispute". No other boundary tag is really applicable,
> maybe a new "boundary=micronation" would work? De facto, US law still
> applies in these "micronations", along with the law of whatever
> jurisdictions the micronation belongs to, so I don't think an
> admin_level tag is applicable.
>
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-- 
Dave Swarthout
Homer, Alaska
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Travel Blog at http://dswarthout.blogspot.com
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