This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

In 1933, several nation states, including the US,

got together in Montevedo Uruguay to define what it means to be a state.

The treaty they came up with includes 16 articles,

each of which lays out different rights and duties of statehood.

That's producer Julia DeWett.

But the most famous article is number one,

which sets out the four basic criteria of statehood.

Basically what it takes to be a country.

The state as a person of international law

should possess the following qualifications,

a defined territory, a permanent population,

a government, and capacity to enter into relations with other states.

I think a good flag is crucial too, but that's just me.

Well, even if you toss in a flag, the criteria for becoming a state seemed to some people surprisingly simple.

So simple that a lot of people thought, hey, I could do that.

And so from a lot of people that just triggered I suppose an idea that that meant

that they could just call their house an independent country. That's John Ryan.

These are countries that might even just be somebody's backyard,

or it could be an area that they are claiming for one reason or another

to be an independent country.

John Ryan is the co-author of the guidebook

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