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Hutt River Province Principality

Over the years there have many micro nations around the world, writes Christer Brunström. Sometimes these tiny countries can be located on a map but quite a few are the result of someone’s creative imagination. One of the leaders in this particular field was the Hutt River Province Principality in Western Australia.

It all started in 1969 when farmer Leonard G. Casley protested against the wheat quotas assigned to his farm. His many protests led nowhere and on 21 April 1970 he announced that Hutt River – basically his rather large farm – had seceded from Australia and was from then on an independent state. In order to create even more attention for his cause, Mr. Casley transformed his farm into a principality with himself as reigning prince.

For Australian and worldwide philatelists, the next important step came on 15 November 1973, when the principality released its first set of postage stamps. There would then be