The following is an official statement from the Cartographer:
For some time we've had a situation where the nation of Pardclinnia, despite not belonging to any active player, has remained on the map. This occurred because the player who controlled Pardclinnia stated they were taking a leave of absence and were leaving another player with what I will term a watching brief over Pardclinnia. Now as cartographer I have no issue with this occurring provided the following two principles are adhered to:
1) That the nation in question is not RP'd in the conventional sense e.g. diplomatic talks, posts through its own news network, conflict RP etc.
2) That the situation is short to mid term or a stated length of the LOA is given.
The reasons for these principles are simple enough each player is permitted a maximum of two map claims - a primary claim of six plots and then once the criteria are satisfied a secondary claim of three plots. There is no such thing as a tertiary claim, therefore it would be against RP rules to have a situation where as is the case in the Pardclinnia situation a player has a six claim primary nation and a three claim secondary nation but also the ability to RP someone else's nation. Now I have no argument with the inactive nation being used as a backdrop for vignettes or being involved in sporting events, but it shouldn't be used for anything else - because otherwise I would have to classify it as an active nation and then we get into the rules issue.
The second principle above is simply because when a nation goes inactive I as cartographer make a decision on how long I leave it before I remove the nation in question from the map. In my judgement the player who owns Pardclinnia has been inactive for long enough and as such the nation will be removed at the next update.