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In the late-1990s, Tuvalu was supposed to get rich by selling access to its Internet domain, which happens to be .tv — funny, since the entire nation has not a single broadcast TV station.
The entire Tuvalu land mass — nine slender South Pacific islands and atolls — is apparently doomed to sink beneath the ocean. Earlier this year, Tuvalu came the closest yet to vanishing.
Oddly enough, Tuvalu might then leave a legacy imagined only in science-fiction novels. It could become the first virtual nation — a country that exists only on the Internet. If Tuvalu’s land disappears, its population will disperse, yet Tuvalu under international law will remain a sovereign nation even though its only “real estate” will be the .tv Internet domain.
