Aerican Empire

Flag of the Aegian Empire.

The Aerican Empire is an imaginative micronation founded in May 1987. It has no sovereign territory of its own and has never been recognized by any other sovereign state as existing.

The current land claims include:

• Chompsville: A square kilometer of territory in Australia near the region of Springvale, Victoria
• Earth: A house-sized area in Montreal, Canada containing the Imperial capital and the site of the Aerican Embassy to Everything Else
• Mars Colony: Approximately 720 acres (2.9 km²) of the surface of the planet Mars at coordinates 10-11 degrees South by 220-221 degrees East 
• Northern Plutopia: The northern half of the dwarf planet Pluto
• Parrwater: A water reservoir near Castor, Alberta
• Psyche: Adjacent to Chompsville and covering the city of Dandenong
• Retsaot Island: An island in the region of Ashburton, New Zealand
• The Pasture: An ill-defined cow pasture located somewhere in the American midwest
• Verden: The only wholly-invented claim, a non-existent planet.

All of the Empire's claimed territories on Earth are currently controlled by other sovereign nations, and the extraterrestrial colonies are uninhabited.

As with most micronations, the Empire's population has fluctuated wildly with time. In March 2008, the Empire's population exceeded 280 citizens.

The Aerican Empire was founded on 8 May 1987 by Eric Lis, the current Emperor, and a core group of friends. The first ten years of the Empire's history were filled with wars, including battles with rival micronations. During this period, the Empire was almost wholly fictional, incorporating a vast galaxy of planets under its nationality^. It was not until the signing of the Aerican Constitution that the micronation pledged only to use war as a last option.

In 2000, the first growth spurt in the Empire's population was triggered by an article in the New York Times. In the months following this, the Empire's membership rose to over five hundred people. This number slowly fell over the following years as members left, eventually stabilizing and rising again with time. The Empire's modern philosophy is summed up in its mission statement: "The Empire exists to facilitate the evolution of a society wherein the Empire itself is no longer necessary."