Humanities desk
< July 17	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 18

Japanese Historical Atlases - Are there any out there?

Hello, i'm a collector of Historical Atlases and very interested in Japanese History. Are there any atlases that i can buy (and are shipped to Europe) or download (maybe some older ones)? --KaterBegemot (talk) 18:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to be a citizen of three countries?

Is it possible to be a citizen of three countries? 2.103.15.147 (talk) 19:01, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:14, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[ec] Yes - see multiple citizenship. However, many countries do not recognize dual citizenship; a better answer to your question would be "It depends which three countries are concerned." Tevildo (talk) 19:16, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An example of a person with triple citizenship is Diego Boneta, who is a citizen of Mexico, Spain and the USA. - Lindert (talk) 19:19, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Typing "triple citizenship" into the Wikipedia search bar brings up a number of examples. Loraof (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My daughter, born in California to a French mother and British father has triple nationality. None of the countries concerned required any special formalities and the uk authorities were surprised that I was even bothering to ask since it seemed so obvious to them. 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:41D8:E19D:B74B:5AEF (talk) 05:41, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's hypothetically possible to be a citizen of more than three countries, though not very common, as usually triple citizenship arises from a combination of the mother's citizenship, the father's citizenship, and the resulting child's country of birth all bestowing citizenship upon the child. But if such a child received honorary citizenship, was a Jew and emigrated to Israel under the law of return, or upon reaching marriageable age, married someone from a fourth country and received spousal citizenship, they could potentially hold quadruple or quintuple citizenship. Of course this assumes all the relevant countries allow multiple citizenship, but it's a hypothetical possibility. I, personally, hold triple citizenship as a result of being born to an American Father, Canadian mother, in Australia. Eliyohub (talk) 07:57, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They don't have to be Palestinian or Israeli - anyone who is born in one country with triple citizenship can move to another country and, by settling there, acquire a fourth. In many countries, this can simply be by living and working there for a few years, without necessarily needing to marry anyone or being a certain ethnicity. For example, if you moved to the UK for work and stayed for a few years, you could have quadruple citizenship, as all four of these countries allow multiple citizenship. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So where does the naturalisation process fit into this? 194.66.226.95 (talk) 12:07, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's the name for the process of obtaining citizenship... which in many countries comes after living and/or working there for a sufficient number of years. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:59, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond the Israeli case, I'm fairly sure there are other cases where you could have multiple citizenship by birth or descent, perhaps in some cases with a language or migration requirement. For example, Ireland grants citizenship to someone who has/d one grandparent who was an Irish citizen at the time of birth, if certain conditions are met, [1], so we could add this to a scenario like the IPs. Other countries allow even further ancestry claims [2], Citizenship of the European Union.

There are other particularities. Speaking of Ireland again, since the most/all? aspects apply to the island of Ireland and this includes granting citizenship to children born in Northern Ireland with foreign parents in certain cases, and British nationality law likewise grants citizenship by birth to foreign parents in certain cases; it's possible for a child born in Northern Ireland would get four citizenships in a similar case to the IPs. In addition, if one or more of the parents are multicitizens themselves, their citizenships could be granted to you depending on such details like they obtained their citizenship, whether they ever lived in the countries etc.

If you look at current law, when you consider those factors along with naturalisation, marriage and conditions where multiple citizenship are allowed (if any) etc it's probably theoretically possible to be a citizen of over 20 countries. One complication is whether you want to include unsafe citizenship. Some countries (e.g. Malaysia) which disallow multiple citizenship don't remove it automatically when you're granted some other citizenship. Instead they can remove it or often will remove it if they find out. And several countries will inform your other country when they grant you citizenship. (But it's possible they don't require you to inform them of all countries you are a citizen of. So if you already have citizenship of a second country, maybe you can get around this.) Still this technical citizenship is a little weird especially since potentially you could be prosecuted if you return to that country. (More likely you'll just be detained and deported.)

More realisticly, the limit would probably be under 20. When you consider that naturalisation often requires at least 5 years, sometimes more and human lifespans only reach about 120. Although these requirements can sometimes be waived, I'm not sure that even someone like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs (when we was alive), Mark Zuckerberg, would have much chance convincing that many countries to grant them citizenship when all they're doing is collecting them like Pokemon. Likewise while citizenship by marriage can be faster, you'll likely have trouble convincing authorities your marriage is genuine when you've been married to 8 different people in the past 10 years or whatever gaining citizenship in each country. (You may need at least 2 years to go from divorced to divorced again anyway depending on country.)

For mere mortals, you need to consider not only the time for naturalisation but actually getting some sort of residency too allow naturalisation to start. Plus some or many countries require you to intend to live the country of naturalisation, so you may need to spend a few more years after naturalisation to avoid anyone asking questions (although I'm not sure how many really care that much unless you do something to piss them off). And many countries want young immigrants unless they're very rich.

Maybe your best bet is if you're lucky enough to start with 4-6 citizenships by birth or descent. If your parents move around a bit when you're young, perhaps you can even pick up 2 more or so before adulthood. It'll be useful to have Australia and some EU country in the mix but no more EU countries (except for those where it's only only way for multiple citizenship) and not New Zealand. Once you're 18 or so get a degree somewhere preferably not somewhere you're a citizen of (but still avoiding the EU and NZ) but which will allow you to gain citizenship (and allows dual citizenship) maybe after a few years of work. Once you're done, if your skills are in high demand, look for a job somewhere else you're not a citizen of still avoiding the EU and NZ and keep this up until you're too old. Now maybe you can give marriage a go getting one more. Actually if you're lucky maybe your spouse can do the same and you can follow. More realisticly, you can now move to NZ (due to your Australian citizenship) and gain citizenship there. Then start moving around those parts of the EU (free movement) which would allow naturalisation and also allow multiple citizenship under your conditions.

You may want to avoid the US if you can, as one of the very few places which will expect you to pay taxes for money earned elsewhere even if you aren't living in the US. Double taxation agreements only go so far. Also unfortunately since we're talking about a 100 year+ project you can only hope you don't get unlucky and lose some of your citizenships or options for whatever reason as laws change. E.g. if many countries turn away from multiple citizenships perhaps after a Trump presidency. Or the EU really disappears or instead becomes a genuine federation and your plans to gain multiple citizenships there flounder.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:44, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]