The Accidental Country with No Laws

Near Tuscany Italy in Northern Umbria there is a small Italian village known as Cospaia. While it is not a quaint collection of buildings, it used to be the center of the tobbacco trade for the whole region – and it used to be its own country.

For nearly four centuries, Cospaia was an independent republic of about three square kilometers. It had no laws, no taxes, or really anything that made it its own nation. Regardless, it was never invaded and no other country claimed it as their own.

This might sound a little strange in an era of border disputes and exact measurement, but this tiny republic was actually a rather comical gaff of Renaissance surveying.

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