On a map it almost looks like a waste. A trapezoid of desert sandwiched between Egypt and Sudan, far from cities, coasts, convenient routes, everything that usually makes a piece of land attractive. Bir Tawil measures approximately 2,060 square kilometers, more or less the size of a small Italian province, and lives within a legal oddity that seems to have emerged from an error that remained in the archives for too long: no recognized state claims it. Around, however, move nomadic shepherds, gold seekers, armed groups, traffickers, travelers obsessed with maps and aspiring sovereigns with flags sewn more for the internet than for the desert.
The formula with which it is often told, “the only habitable land in the world without an owner”, works because it is simple. Too bad Bir Tawil is anything but an atlas curiosity. It is a place without permanent water on the surface, crossed by dry wadis, with temperatures that in summer can reach around 45 degrees, yet used for centuries by nomadic populations such as the Ababda and the Bishari.
The name itself, Bir Tawil, refers to a long, high well, important enough to remain in the language. In short, the land without a state has memory, tracks, pastures, gold, fears. Only the official stamp is missing.
The colonial paradox that left Bir Tawil off useful maps
The strangeness arises from two lines drawn by British administrators when the area was within the Anglo-Egyptian colonial system. In 1899 the political border between Egypt and Sudan was established along the 22nd parallel north. With that line, the richer and more strategic triangle of Hala’ib, overlooking the Red Sea, fell into the Egyptian sphere, while Bir Tawil ended on the Sudanese side. In 1902 a second line arrived, administrative, designed to better follow the use of the territory by the tribes and the wells. At that point Hala’ib came under Sudanese administration and Bir Tawil under Egyptian administration.
The mechanism got stuck there. Egypt defends the 1899 line, useful for supporting its claim to Hala’ib. Sudan has historically recalled the 1902 administrative line, useful for claiming the same coastal triangle. Hala’ib is worth much more: it has access to the Red Sea, a strategic position, stable populations, infrastructure, military and commercial weight. Bir Tawil, without sea and without permanent population centers, remains the piece that no one can take without weakening the argument on the other. The result is a contemporary terra nullius, the result of colonial bureaucracy and geopolitical calculation.
The desert, however, looks at these legal elegances with a certain indifference. In practice, Bir Tawil is between two states that prefer to discuss the best piece, while tracks, animals, armed men and trucks pass below. The Ababda and Bishari have been crossing the region since long before modern maps decided to cut the Sahara in straight lines. The 1902 line was also created precisely to take into account those presences and their movements, albeit within the usual colonial logic: first you draw, then someone realizes that the land was already used by others.
Gold seekers, mercury and trafficking difficult to chase
Bir Tawil is often imagined as a perfect void. Sand, stones, heat, silence. The reality that filters through the reports on the ground is dirtier, less romantic. Over time, archaeological finds, ceramics, burials and stone tools have been found in the wider Nubian corridor, which tell of ancient human adaptations in a very harsh environment. The region between the Nile and the Red Sea has been valuable for civilizations, routes and resources long before anyone called it “no man’s land”.
What has changed the weight of the place in recent years has been above all gold. The information available remains fragmentary, precisely because Bir Tawil does not have a recognized state authority that produces data, clear concessions, environmental registers, health checks. A study dedicated to the Ababda and indigenous rights in the area reconstructs the discovery of new exploitable areas and the role of local prospectors, within an area where administrative borders are not enough to explain who lives, works and claims what.
The gold issue brings with it a weighty word: mercury. In artisanal mining, mercury is often used to separate precious metal from crushed rock. It’s cheap, it works, it leaves behind a toxic legacy. A United Nations expert has warned that the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining is a major global source of mercury pollution. In the case of Bir Tawil, some complaints and testimonies speak of out-of-control mining activities and the fear that soil and groundwater could be compromised.
Then there is the Sudanese war, which complicates everything it touches. Since 2023, Sudan has been experiencing a devastating conflict between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces, with effects that spread to peripheral areas, trafficking, illegal economies and the movement of people. In a space without stable police, without recognized courts on site, without ordinary administration, every void becomes an opportunity. Some reports speak of traffickers, weapons, mercenary groups and even drug passages with camel caravans. These are reports that are difficult to establish with official documents, and this very uncertainty says a lot: Bir Tawil is a place where verification always arrives late, if it arrives.
The fake kingdoms in the desert
At a certain point, over this very harsh desert, the imagination of micronationalists also settled, people or groups who declare the birth of imaginary states, print passports, design coats of arms, open websites, assign themselves titles. On Bir Tawil they found the perfect backdrop. A land with no state claim, remote enough to seem mythical, accessible enough for someone to get there, plant a flag, take a photo, and return home with a self-proclaimed crown in their pocket.
In 2014, Jeremiah Heaton, a farmer from Virginia, reached Bir Tawil and declared the “Kingdom of North Sudan,” saying he wanted to make his daughter a princess. The story made the rounds in the international media, also because it was associated with a possible film project. In 2017, Indian entrepreneur Suyash Dixit announced the “Kingdom of Dixit” after a visit that became a social spectacle. The following day, according to available reconstructions, the Russian DJ Dmitry Zhikharev claimed the territory as the “Kingdom of Middle Earth”, with clear reference to Tolkien’s imagination.
From then on the list grew longer. The Kingdom of the Yellow Mountain, more packaged projects, digital declarations, improvised institutional portals have appeared. A self-proclaimed Principality of Bir Tawil claims on its website to have a population of 3,030 in 2024 and to have applied for observer status at the United Nations in January 2025. They are claims to be treated for what they are: claims of a subject without international recognition. The United Nations and recognized states do not consider any of these experiments to be sovereign.
The most grotesque part lies in the contrast. On the one hand there are glossy sites, digital tokens, nominal capitals, online citizenships, extreme tourism, promises of hydroponic agriculture, desalination, solar energy, sustainable models in the middle of the sand. On the other hand there are nomadic tribes who see people arriving from outside convinced that they can transform land used for generations into a personal project. The desert, for some, is a backdrop. For others it is a house without walls.
Hala’ib still decides the fate of Bir Tawil
The future of Bir Tawil still depends on the piece of coast that everyone wants. Hala’ib has been effectively administered by Egypt since the mid-1990s, while Sudan has continued to claim it in various places. In 2025 some regional reconstructions spoke of Sudanese communications that would have treated Hala’ib, Shalateen and Abu Ramad as areas included in Egypt in view of demarcation talks. The news, read like this, would have an enormous effect: if Khartoum really accepted the 1899 line, Hala’ib would remain Egyptian and Bir Tawil would logically end up in the Sudanese sphere.
Paper, however, travels faster than reality. Sudan is experiencing a civil war which makes any administrative decision fragile, especially in remote areas. Even formal recognition would require control of the territory, forces on the ground, managed borders, relations with local populations, rules on mining, environmental checks. All things much less simple than a line on a map.
So Bir Tawil remains there, with its almost perfect absurdity. Too poor to tempt states when Hala’ib is next door, ambiguous enough to attract gold diggers and sovereign fantasies, hard enough to repel those who imagine it as a blank sheet of paper. No state really wants it, many individuals want it in their own way, those who have been through it for generations continue to do so without needing to invent a throne. In the desert, flags don’t last long. The wind wears them out, sand gets into the seams, the sun fades everything. Bir Tawil remains. Without crown, without capital, without fairy tale.
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