Floating Homes & Communities

Sealand, North Sea (off Suffolk)
Sealand is a self-declared principality (with its own currency and flag) on a rusting gun platform six miles off the Suffolk coast. The platform was built in 1942 to shoot down German aircraft and stationed up to 300 servicemen. It was abandoned about 10 years after the war ended and, in 1967, former British Major Paddy Roy Bates occupied the fort after ejecting some competing pirate broadcasters. Bates claimed sovereignty and, a year later, after he fired across the bow of a passing Royal Navy ship, a British court held that the platform was in international waters and outside its jurisdiction, giving Bates a de facto claim to independence. Sealand is still occupied today and has just begun to host visitors again