"Your country isn't perfect--but with a little planning and a personalized flag, your true utopia may be as close as your own backyard! Here are the stories of thirty self-made places around the world built with a dream of utopia: from the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands to the Indian rock garden of Nek Chand to the micronation of Sealand and much more. Whether they were building an ideal community, a safe haven, an inspiring structure, or a better-run country, these creators struck out against the laws of their homelands, the approval of their peers, or even nature itself to shape the world around them."--