In a previous “Maphead” column, we traveled to Bir Tawil, a tiny trapezoid on the border between Egypt and Sudan that neither nation claims. Since no one owns it, Bir Tawil has territory but no sovereignty. What if there was a “country” that was the exact opposite, one with sovereignty, but no territory? How do you issue stamps and currency and maintain diplomatic relations with 104 nations without appearing on a map? Let’s ask the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is a Catholic religious and chivalric order that traces its history back almost one thousand years, to a Jerusalem hospital founded to care for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land in the decades before the Crusades. During the Middle Ages, the order was a powerful military force, conquering Rhodes in the 14th century and governing Malta until 1798, when Napoleon kicked them out.

For the next two centuries, the Order’s “government” operated out of a palazzo near the Spanish Steps in Rome, which has been granted extraterritorial status by Italy, as they would to any other embassy. Today, the order continues to serve as a worldwide service and humanitarian organization, led by its elected-for-life “Prince and Grand Master,” currently the English-born Matthew Festing.

So is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta really sovereign? It depends on whom you ask. It has full diplomatic relations with more than half the world’s nations, and has been granted “permanent observer” status at the U.N., just like the Vatican and Palestine. It even issues passports and license plates, despite the fact that it has no real border to cross and no roads to drive on. On the other hand, many world powers (include Britain and the U.S.) have never recognized the Order. It has no radio callsign or top-level Internet domain, and many international-law experts insist that, despite its name, it’s not a sovereign entity at all.

That pesky lack of a country is, of course, the main thing in the way of the Order of Malta’s “country” status. So maybe it helps that, in 1998, on the 200th anniversary of their eviction from Malta, the Knights were allowed to return. They now have a 99-year agreement to use their ancestral home, Fort St. Angelo in the center of the island’s Grand Harbour. It must be nice to have a place to put their posters and exercise equipment and stuff, finally get it out of storage. If they still don’t have enough room, I hear Bir Tawil is vacant right now.

Photograph by Antony Souter/Getty

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Explore the world's oddities every week on CondeNastTraveler.com with Ken Jennings. Check out his latest book, Maphead__.