Why Are These Countries So Small? 

@@kostas0352 you poor person

Lucky bastard

Yeah but most these countries are dead. Monaco and San Marino are soulless

@@activistbook3809 sadly true... they are more interesting to read about then actually visit.

@@sdrawkcabUK to be fair I haven’t been to as many as you. Never went to Andorra or Lichtenstein but I can’t imagine they are much different from Luxembourg or Northern Spain

Semantics. Sure, they chose to word it that way in the Lateran Treaty in 1929, but in practice there is continuity. Before the Lateran Treaty Italy just didn't recognize the Pope's authority over the Vatican hill, and the pope didn't recognize Italian authority over Rome as a whole. But Italy still just left the Vatican hill alone, from Italian unification till the Lateran Treaty the pope remained in control of the Vatican hill. So yeah, on paper the Vatican city was a new state founded in 1929. But in practice it was just what little survived of the Pope's domain, so I wouldn't say my phrasing in the video was all that inaccurate.

True. But without the Papal States there wouldn’t be a Vatican City!

It was regain of territorial sovereignity of the Holy See.

Then why not making your own diarchy? Not telling you have to rotate every 6 months like us but... why not taking full control?

@@FlagAnthem Legally speaking, we are "in full control" (you wish!) since we voted our constitution 30 years ago, but there's no way they will let us be really independent considering the equilibrium of power is totally in favor of our neighbours...

A sovereign island makes sense.

Dude do you realize Monaco and Vatican are SOVEREIGN STATES and not special territories?

Being on a island really helps maintain your independence, as UK bod I have to admit its kinda cheating. The British Crown Dependencies the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey, and the Isle of Man are three island territories in the British Isles that are self-governing possessions of the British Crown, they are akin to 'miniature states with wide powers of self-government. Wikipedia tells me they are not part of the United Kingdom but "territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible", rather than sovereign states. OK that is clear is it?

​@@zoe_blackmore Precisely, and were it not an island, or situated on a larger island, Malta would have likely expanded long ago considering the rule of the Knights Hospitallier, or simply be conquered by a larger power because the land would be more beneficial to hold. It's surprisingly quite hard to annex the very sea itself... ergo the reason we usually label the small countries of the Pacific "Island Nations" rather than "Microstates".

Island countries don't count. Small island=small country. It's the same in the Pacific and the Caribbean. But Luxemburg should totally be included.

I'm from Andorra and people here agree that micro states are nit only small by size but also population (has to be 100.000 or less). Malta is smaller in size but boasts a 500.000 inhabitants to Andorra's 80.000. Malta has even nearly the double of inhabitants than the comparatively enormous Iceland does.

Nah Luxembourg is bigger than these countries

Luxembourg isn’t really a micro state, just a pretty small country.

Or we can just let countries keep sovereignty and have every country compete with one another for everything. That'll easily raise our potentials of achieving stuff as the reason for advancing and bettering your society isn't just to live more comfortable in an already comfortable society, but rather to live as comfortable as your neighbors so more people come to you, like how life has always done. Every species always competed with one another for betterment of their own species, humans have always competed with one another for betterment of their cities and countries, competition is natural, and having competition without large militaries trying to take over others is even better. So why don't we have competition instead of huge monolithic countries that make competition harder thus slowing our advance as a species, as competition = advancement

@@giviko1709 fair enough mate that is a fair point but I don't quite agree. Also the compotision (sorry again) can be very diverse. Like a union can have it's divisions (states, provinces, departments, etc) do so in national leagues. Also individuals compete too. Can't that also achieve advancement?

​@@KangaKucha The difference is that when there is one monolithic government if it turns authoritarian there is no other option but to keep with staying with it, but if there are a lot of cooperative countries that are smaller and all work together yet are entirely separate entities that ensures that creating a monopolistic monolithic government isn't as easy, that was probably one of the things that made it hard for USSR, Germany and many other fascist regimes to spread power. Many people also want to have their own country, especially ethnic minorities, that's why we have places like Artsakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Catalonia, Quebec, Somaliland, Kurdistan and many other places always seeking independence. There are more independence movements than there are unity movements (at least in terms of ones that actually have effect). If we have dozens of countries we'll be able to see what kinds of goverments don't work and which ones do, like we always have. But that is likely to lead to war, and especially with modern day technology that's dangerous for every living being on the entire planet. So a world government would be a good thing to have if the only thing it does is make it impossible for countries to make huge militaries and passing laws that take away freedoms, but if the unified government began to monopolize and became a little more authoritarian (which is quite possible as governments as time goes often grow the number of things they can control in the country, often leading to limits on freedom). Say the centralized major government passes laws taking away some freedoms (like say making abortion illegal, or making talking about some topic illegal, or if enough people agreed allowing slavery or something like that), it would be impossible to escape from the said government, as it would be the major power in every habitable part of the planet earth, and maybe beyond it as well as we spread out into the solar system. If a lot of governments existed all competing with one another on providing more freedoms instead of a central powerful state that can pass a law and then later make sure that the law, no matter how bad, can be kept as it has access to all of the military, you'd have no escape. There are many pros and cons in having one big government, and deciding on all of the problems (especially considering how different political ideologies of everyone is), would never lead to even majority of the human population being content with the actions of their government, which could at any point lead to civil war or collapse of the centralized state.

@@giviko1709 c'mon mate that is way too much to read. Let's just agree to disagree ok? Also you might have made a mistake or 2, like USSR was communist not fascist, there is a difference. Might want to have another good look. Ok? Cheers! Matt

Austria and Germany are all ethnic Germans, maybe we should unite them too?? Oh wait... You can not simply ignore history in regards to borders. Or excuse me, not just history: Politics (Taiwan, not a microstate but might as well be in relation to PRC), religion (Vatican City, seat of the Holy See), culture (Andorra, only country where Catalan is official, rich history) it is not right to spit on any of this because you feel the subject is irrelevant, this logic becomes more and more destructive as you apply it to larger states. It's a blurry line between "too small to deserve independence" and "big enough to rule" (And a somewhat tyrannical distinction), and therefore a hypocritical doctrine if put into practice. Let us all show reasonable empathy to each others cultures and history, this is part of the excellence of modern humanity! I mean no disrespect, but I strongly disagree.