In April 2023 the Free Republic of Liberland had no permanent residents, minimal infrastructure, and frequent flooding that undermined its aim to become the freest country. Founded in 2015 by Vít Jedlička, a Czech euroskeptic, the project claimed a terra nullius amid pockets of land left disputed by a Serbia–Croatia border disagreement. Croatia has repeatedly blocked settlement efforts and arrested Jedlička. With Chinese cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun appointed prime minister, Liberland is pushing diplomatic outreach, especially toward the United States, to secure recognition and finally settle the claimed territory.
When I visited the Free Republic of Liberland in April 2023, on its eighth anniversary, there was little to indicate that the tiny proto-nation-which had no permanent residents, barely any buildings, and a tendency to flood-was on track to fulfill its goal of becoming " the freest country on the planet." But these days, Liberland has friends in high places.
The Croatian government has since repeatedly blocked Liberland's attempts to settle the territory, which it treats as disputed land. Jedlička, who serves as Liberland's president, has been arrested by Croatian border police on multiple occasions. During my 2023 visit, I found myself participating in a slow-motion police chase while sailing down the Danube toward the territory; Croatian officers tailed our boat for almost its entire two-hour journey from Serbia, and patrolmen waited to intercept anybody who might try to make landfall.
Liberland was founded in 2015 by Vít Jedlička, a euro-skeptic politician from Czechia who had come to view European democracies as blighted by stringent regulation and overtaxation. In search of somewhere to start afresh, Jedlička came across a rare plot of land that seemed to belong to no country-a terra nullius, or no man's land. A border disagreement between Serbia and Croatia-a carryover from the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s-has created pockets of land west of the Danube that neither nation claims.
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