Create empty conda environment

To create an environment that is absolutely empty, without python and/or any other default package, just make a new folder in envs directory in your Anaconda installation (Anaconda3 in this example):.

~\Anaconda3\envs>mkdir empy_env

The first time that you activate this environment a directory named Scripts in Windows, bin in Linux, with a few batch files are created. At the time of this post this works for Anaconda version 4.3.30 both in Windows and Linux.

I have noticed that @cel has suggested the same thing in the first comment under the question, but obviously it hasn't got the attention it deserves!

If you've created a create_default_packages block in your .condarc file, @joelion's answer will install those packages. If you don't want those, use the --no-default-packages flag. For example:

conda create --name myenv python --no-default-packages

This is how to create a truly empty (light) conda_env with 0 packages:

conda create --name myenv --no-default-packages

it will take a few seconds to create and finish.

You can give a package name of just "python" to get a base, empty install.

conda create --name myenv python
conda create --name myenv python=3.4