When a Virginia girl told her father she wanted to be a princess, her father went to extremes to make sure her wish would come true.

[H]e began researching how to make his daughter a princess last winter [beginning] with an online search of unclaimed lands around the world and, by June, was making the 14-hour caravan journey through the Egyptian desert to reach an unclaimed 800-square-mile patch of land along the Sudanese border.

Bir Tawil or Bi’r Tawīl (Arabic: بير طويل‎ Bīr Ṭawīl or بئر طويل Bi’r Ṭawīl; meaning “tall water well”) is a 2,060 km2 (800 sq mi) area along the border between Egypt and Sudan, which is claimed by neither country.

Its terra nullius status results from a discrepancy between the straight political boundary between Egypt and Sudan established in 1899, and the irregular administrative boundary established in 1902.

Egypt asserts the political boundary, and Sudan asserts the administrative boundary, with the result that the Hala’ib Triangle is claimed by both, and Bir Tawil by neither.

There is an interesting Wikipedia article on these terra nullius sites, though the vast majority are presently settled.

My personal favorite is the Guano Islands Act of 1856 which enables United States citizens to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. That would, granted, have made for a considerably less impressive monarchial claim.

Another possibility for those looking for a site for a secret base would be certain unclaimed areas of Antarctica.

The final interesting one is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 which holds that celestial bodies – such as the Moon or Mars – are not subject to national or corporate appropriation. Now, everybody raise their hand who thinks that will stop, oh, any nation at all when such becomes actually feasible and permanent settlement of such places is ultimately accomplished?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. It has also, unfortunately, done more harm to discouraging the development of commercial human spaceflight than any other single thing. Great idea guys. Really. Thanks for doing your best to put a nail in the coffin of practical settlement of the solar system.

Top photo via on Facebook.
Top quoted text via ABC News.
Bottom quoted text via Wikipedia.