When did the last Terra Nullius vanish from the earth?

Question

By "Terra Nullius" or "white spot" I mean a place where you (if you were so inclined) could "legally" settle and live in some wilderness as a trapper or farmer without having to ask for permission, pay taxes, etc. (A place where you could get away with anarchy, if you will.)

If you look at today's word map it's clear that all territory belongs to states, which need to support themselves, hence ask duties and raise taxes from their citizens, etc. I once thought that during the settlement of the American Wild West there was still plenty of "white space" left (every rancher is his own king, so to speak), but presumably all its territory was already claimed by the time of, say, the early 19th century? Would there perhaps have been "white space" left e.g. from the point of view of precolonial Indians?

Or did the possibility vanish even earlier? (IMO it must have existed somewhen in the past when population counts were low compared to habitable areas. According to this movie the Last Trapper may be still alive and well ...)

Answer 1

I am talking about Terra nullius which are lands occupied by countries, not individuals. (Most of my answer is from the Wikipedia link. I picked the most important)

You can find them in :

Svalbard was considered to be a terra nullius until Norway was given sovereignty over the islands in the Svalbard Treaty of 9 February 1920.

Greenland

Norway occupied and claimed parts of (then uninhabited) Eastern Greenland in the 1920s, claiming that it constituted terra nullius. The matter was decided by the Permanent Court of International Justice against Norway.

Scarborough Shoal

The Philippines and the People's Republic of China both claim the Scarborough Shoal or Panatag Shoal or Huangyan Island (黄岩岛), nearest to the island of Luzon, located in the South China Sea. The Philippines claims it under the principles of terra nullius and EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone).

Guano Islands

The Guano Islands Act from August 18, 1856, enabled citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of other governments. It also empowers the President of the United States to use the military to protect such interests, and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States.

Yes, there are some terra nullius left.

Bir Tawil

Between Egypt and Sudan there is a landlocked territory of Bir Tawil, which was created by a discrepancy between borders drawn in 1899 and 1902.

Answer 2

I think the question is impossible to answer definitively because of vagueness in the definitions.

Yes, today every square inch of land on Earth is claimed by SOMEBODY. There are a few disputed territories -- the area between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Sakhalin Island, and so forth -- but the issue here isn't that NO nation claims them, but that multiple nations claim them. Antarctica is the closest to a viable case. I understand that all the nations with claims there have agreed to "suspend" their territorial claims for the time being, mostly because actually living there is too impractical, so they may as well just co-operate on scientific research stations and the like for now.

But when was the last blank on the map claimed? Hard to say. What land do nomadic tribes claim? When the Europeans arrived in America, it was not at all clear what land the various Indian tribes claimed. They didn't keep title deeds and careful maps of borders like Europeans did. So was every square inch of America claimed by some Indian tribe? Probably not, various hard-to-access places and places where life would be too hard were not being used by anyone. But identifying exactly who owned any given square inch would be tough.

Of course the Europeans started dividing the place up and drawing borders. Eventually white folks claimed all of it, and so anywhere you go in the Americas today SOME government will claim the right to impose their laws and their taxes.

So the real answer to your question would appear to be "no later than the early 20th century, but possibly much earlier depending on definitions". Which, I know, isn't a very helpful answer.

Answer 3

What gives you the idea that the American frontier was "whitespace"? Virtually all of the new world was claimed by somebody, sometimes multiple countries. Before the French and Indian War, all the land west of the Appalachians drained by the Mississippi was claimed by the French. The French armed the Indians and gave them carte blanche to kill any English settlers in those areas. Sure, you could go there and try to set up a homestead, but you risked death every day. Also, you would be living really tough. It's not like you could load up a truck with 2 tons of grain and drive it back to Baltimore to sell it. There were no roads, just paths through the forest.

As far as living "tax free", you can do that right now. In Maine there is what is called "unincorporated" land. You can buy and live on it with no property taxes. As long as you are not making any income (which you will not be if you are living in the backwoods), you will not pay any Maine or Federal taxes. In Alaska, the state will actually pay you to live in the boonies. People like Eskimoes in Alaska not only pay no taxes, but actually can get paid significant amounts of money just for living out in the middle of nowhere.

As far as living in a place where you are "free", that is hard because every square inch of land usually has somebody who wants to boss it around. There are still lots of remote areas a person can live in and not (usually) be molested by some authority, for example, the southern Phillipino islands, the interior of Borneo, central South America, eastern Alaska/western Canada, various places in Siberia, unoccupied islands in the Pacific Ocean, places in Nepal and the Himalyas, desert regions like the Sinai, the Sahara, the Rub' al Khali, the Dasht-e Kavir and the Taklamakan.