As we all know, if you have money, you can buy land. The richer you are, the bigger land you can buy. But what if you were extremely rich? If you were a billionaire, or had many millions of dollars, could you purchase an entire country?
It is not possible to buy a country. Although territories have been sold in the past, no independent country has ever been sold. There are instances in history where territory that has been bought has become an independent country, but sovereign states cannot be purchased.
…but that’s just an overview. Let’s look at the history of buying and selling territory and explain in more detail why it’s not possible to purchase a nation state.
Can A Country Be Sold?
Ok, so it’s clear you cannot just buy a country. But what about the other way around? Could a country that needs money desperately sell itself? Or could one nation sell another?
A country cannot be sold. A government does not have the legal right to sell a country and there are no mechanisms in international law for the purchasing of nations states.
Throughout history, there have been instances of territories being sold. A few examples of these include:
- Louisiana (1803)
- Singapore (1824)
- Alaska (1867)
- Gwadar (1958)
- Danish West Indies (1916)
Some of the territories that have been sold have gone on, often centuries later, to become independent countries. However, there has never been a time in history where a country has been bought or sold.
Today, it is not possible for a country to be sold. Governments can only operate within the rights they have. Even in dictatorial regimes the government does not have complete power but is restricted to a degree by a state’s constitution or prescribed powers.
There is no country in the world where the government has the right to sell it. This differs to territories and land, that, if they are owned by the government, can be sold. However, no government owns all the land in a country, and therefore they do not have right to sell it.
How Much Would A Country Cost To Buy?
So, we’ve established you cannot buy or sell countries. However, as a thought experiment, let’s think about how much a country would cost, if you could actually buy one…
Any country would likely cost trillions of dollars to buy. No country has ever been sold, but in the past territories that have been sold had their prices set almost arbitrarily. However today a countries price would be set based on their economic, mineral, and human resources.
When territories have been sold in the past, such as Singapore, the Gold Coast and Caroline Islands, their prices have been set basically arbitrarily. The US paid only 7.2 million dollars to Russia for Alaska. The price was not set against the actual value of the territory, but more what the two countries could agree for its sale. Essentially, when territories were sold in the past, the price was really just made up.
Today, if a nation could be bought or sold, the price would be calculated based on an accurate estimation of the value of the country. This could be done nowadays as we have much more information on countries’ economies, populations, and mineral resources. However, the result would be that countries would be incredibly expensive to buy – costing likely trillions of dollars for even the cheapest ones…
Would Be The Cheapest Country To Buy?
Let’s take this thought experiment even further. Although we know it’s not possible to buy a country, let’s still think more about what would happen if you could? If someone is looking for a good deal, and wants to buy the cheapest country they could, where would that be?
The cheapest countries to buy would likely be the poorest ones in the world – Burundi, Somalia, or Mozambique. However, it is not possible to buy a sovereign state and no countries are purchasable for any price.
As we’ve made clear, it is not possible to buy a country. However, if you could, the cheapest country to buy would be one with the lowest value. Like in any other sale – the price of something is determined by its value in the market. This is set by many factors, including how much income something could generate and how much someone else would pay for it.
If you apply the logic of market pricing to a country, the cheapest country would be one that generates the least income. This would mean the poorest countries in the world – the one’s with the lowest GDP, would be the cheapest. The five poorest countries in the world are:
- Somalia
- Burundi
- Mozambique
- Madagascar
- Sierra Leone
It’s important to stress that none of these countries are for sale and it is not possible to buy a country. However, if you could, they would probably be the cheapest.
Could A Billionaire Buy A Country?
An inescapable factor of the 21st Century life is that there are some people in the world who are insanely rich. Billionaires have so much money its hard to believe there is something they could not buy. So, could a billionaire today buy a whole country?
A billionaire could not buy a country. It is not possible to buy a sovereign state and therefore billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates could not purchase one.
The simple reason why a billionaire could not buy a nation state is because you cannot buy a country. No matter how wealthy you are, countries are not for sale. Governments are not able to sell their countries and there is no mechanism for buying nation states.
Although previously territories, such as Alaska, Louisiana, and Singapore, have been sold, these have all been sold to governments. Also, no territory has been sold since 1963. Today, governments don’t sell territory. So not only would it not be possible for a billionaire to buy a country, they also could not buy a large part of a country either.
Could You Buy An Island And Make It A Country?
We know for sure that you cannot buy a country. However, it is of course possible to buy land around the world. What if someone wanted to start their own country? Is it possible to buy an island somewhere and make it into a country?
It is not possible to buy an island and create a country. Although it is possible to purchase islands, countries need to be recognised internationally to be nation states. Anyone buying an island and declaring independence would not receive international recognition.
For a country to be official it needs to be recognised by other nations. This means the borders, government and sovereignty of a country is seen a legitimate by other countries. There are places in the world that have declared themselves independent but that are unrecognised – Somaliland, Abkhazia, and Transnistria, for example. However, in the views of the rest of the world, these places aren’t countries.
Essentially, if you bought an island and tried to make it into your own state, no other country in the world would recognise your sovereignty or right to govern that territory. This would mean the island would remain part of the country that it was bought from.
To put it simply, if you bought and island and declared it your own country, you would think it was a country… but no one else would.
Could You Buy A Continent?
It may not be possible to buy a country. However, what about other types of land? Is it possible for someone to buy a continent? Perhaps as a way to purchase all the countries on it?
It is not possible to buy a continent. Sovereign states are not purchasable and in order to buy a continent each state within the continent would need to be purchased. No continent has ever been bought and sold in history.
As we’ve explained, it is not possible to buy a country. Governments cannot sell the land of their country as they do not own it or have the right to sell it. Therefore, as it is not possible to buy a country, it is also not possible to buy a continent. This is because to buy a continent would require purchasing all the land in all the countries on that continent. This is simply impossible.