A city-state is an independent city that encompasses the totality of its sovereign territory. This concept stands in contrast to that of a regular state or country, which typically encompasses a capital city and additional urban centers, in addition to the countryside. Throughout history, numerous city-states have emerged in various regions of the world, including prominent examples such as Rome, Carthage, Athens, and Sparta, as well as the Italian city-states that flourished during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, such as Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Milan.
With the rise of nation states worldwide, there remains some disagreement on the number of modern city-states that still exist; Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City are the candidates most commonly discussed. Out of these, Singapore is the largest and most populous city-state in the world, with full sovereignty, international borders, its own currency, a robust military, and substantial international influence in its own right. The Economist refers to it as the "world's only fully functioning city-state".
Several non-sovereign cities enjoy a high degree of autonomy and are often considered to be city-states, such as Hong Kong and Macau. Cities of the United Arab Emirates, most notably Dubai, have been cited in similar terms.Kotkin, Joel. 2010. "A New Era for the City-State?" In Forbes. Additionally, certain non-sovereign overseas territories, such as Gibraltar, are also sometimes called city-states.
Historical background Ancient and medieval world
Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk, Ur and Nippur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa and Poljica in Croatia; Tbilisi in Georgia; the medieval Russian city-states of Novgorod and Pskov; the free imperial cities of German-speaking Europe; mueang of Indochina; barangay states of the Philippines; and many others. Danish historian Poul Holm has classed the Viking colonial cities in medieval Ireland, most importantly the Kingdom of Dublin, as city-states.Holm, Poul, "Viking Dublin and the City-State Concept: Parameters and Significance of the Hiberno-Norse Settlement" (Respondent: Donnchadh Ó. Corráin), in Mogens Herman Hansen (ed.), A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures . Denmark: Special-Trykkeriet Viborg. (University of Copenhagen, Polis Center). 2000. pp. 251–62.
In Cyprus, the Phoenician settlement of Kition (in present-day Larnaca) was a city-state that existed from around 800 BC until the end of the 4th century BC."The architectural ruins of the ancient city-kingdom of Kition provide the first clear evidence that the Mycenean Achaens arrived in Larnaka in the 13th century and stayed until the 11th century BC. The Phoenicians inhabited the city in the 9th century BC." https://www.visitcyprus.com/discover-cyprus/culture/sites-and-monuments/kition-archaeological-site/.
Some of the best-known examples of city-state culture in human history are the ancient Greek city-states and the merchant city-states of Renaissance Italy, which organised themselves as independent centers. The success of regional units coexisting as autonomous actors in loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy and Greece, often prevented their amalgamation into larger national units. However, such small political entities often survived only for short periods because they lacked the resources to defend themselves against incursions by larger states (such as Roman conquest of Greece). Thus they inevitably gave way to larger organisations of society, including the empire and the nation-state.Sri Aurobindo, "Ideal of Human Unity" included in Social and Political Thought, 1970.
Central Europe
In the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) more than 80 Free Imperial Cities came to enjoy considerable autonomy in the Middle Ages and in early modern times, buttressed legally by international law following the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Some, like three of the earlier Hanseatic cities – Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck – pooled their economic relations with foreign powers and were able to wield considerable diplomatic clout. Individual cities often made protective alliances with other cities or with neighbouring regions, including the Hanseatic League (1358 – 17th century), the Swabian League of Cities (1331–1389), the Décapole (1354–1679) in the Alsace, or the Old Swiss Confederacy ( 1300 – 1798). The Swiss cantons of Zürich, Bern, Lucerne, Fribourg, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, and Geneva originated as city-states.
After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, some cities – then members of different confederacies – officially became sovereign city-states, such as the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (1806–11 and again 1813–71), the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main (1815–66), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1806–11 and again 1814–71), the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck (1806–11 and again 1813–71), and the Free City of Kraków (1815–1846). Under Habsburg rule the city of Fiume had the status of a corpus separatum (1779–1919), which – while falling short of an independent sovereignty – had many attributes of a city-state.
Italy
In Northern and Central Italy during the medieval and Renaissance periods, city-states – with various amounts of associated land – became the standard form of polity. Some of them, despite being de facto independent states, were formally part of the Holy Roman Empire. The era of the Italian states, in particular from the 11th to the 15th centuries, featured remarkable economic development, trade, manufacture, and mercantile capitalism, together with increasing urbanization, with remarkable influence throughout much of the Mediterranean world and Europe as a whole. During this time, most of the Italian city-states were ruled by one person, such as the Signoria or by a dynasty, such as the House of Gonzaga and the House of Sforza.
Examples of Italian city-states during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Republic of Florence, Duchy of Milan, Duchy of Ferrara, San Marino, Duchy of Modena and Reggio, Duchy of Urbino, Duchy of Mantua and the Republic of Lucca.
The powerful maritime republics: Republic of Venice, Republic of Genoa, Republic of Amalfi, Republic of Pisa, Republic of Ancona and Duchy of Gaeta.
Southeast Asia In the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, aristocratic groups, Buddhist leaders, and others organized settlements into autonomous or semi-autonomous city-states. These were referred to as mueang, and were usually related in a tributary relationship now described as mandala or as over-lapping sovereignty, in which smaller city-states paid tribute to larger ones that paid tribute to still larger ones – until reaching the apex in cities like Ayutthaya, Bagan, Bangkok and others that served as centers of Southeast Asian royalty. The system existed until the 19th century, when colonization by European powers occurred. Siam, a regional power at the time, needed to define their territories for negotiation with the European powers so the Siamese government established a nation-state system, incorporated their tributary cities (Lan Xang, Cambodia and some Malay cities) into their territory and abolished the mueang and the tributary system.Winichakul, Thongchai. 1997. Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Baker, Chris and Pasuk Phongpaichit. 2009. A History of Thailand: 2nd ed. Sydney: Cambridge University Press.
In early Philippine history, the barangay was a complex sociopolitical unit which scholars have historically considered the dominant organizational pattern among the various peoples of the Philippine archipelago. , . These sociopolitical units were sometimes also referred to as barangay states, but are more properly referred to using the technical term polity. Evidence suggests a considerable degree of independence as city states ruled by Datus, Rajahs and Sultans. Early chroniclers record that the name evolved from the term balangay, which refers to a plank boat widely used by various cultures of the Philippine archipelago prior to the arrival of European colonizers.
20th-century cities under international supervision
Danzig
The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 towns in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 under the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I.
Fiume
After a prolonged period where the city of Fiume enjoyed considerable autonomy under Habsburg rule (see Corpus separatum (Fiume)), the Free State of Fiume was proclaimed as a fully independent free state which existed between 1920 and 1924. Its territory of comprised the city of Fiume (now in Croatia and, since the end of World War II, known as Rijeka, both names meaning "river" in the respective languages) and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy.
Jerusalem
Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine of 1947, Mandatory Palestine was to be partitioned into three states: a Jewish state of Israel, an Arab state of Palestine, and a corpus separatum (Latin for "separated body") consisting of a Jerusalem city-state under the control of United Nations Trusteeship Council. Although the plan had some international support and the UN accepted this proposal (and still officially holds the stance that Jerusalem should be held under this regime), implementation of the plan failed as the 1948 Palestine war broke out with the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, ultimately resulting in Jerusalem being split into West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem. Israel would eventually gain control of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Memel
The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors. The Memel Territory was to remain under the control of the League of Nations until a future day when the people of the region would be allowed to vote on whether the land would return to Germany or not. The then predominantly ethnic German Memel Territory (Prussian Lithuanians and Memellanders constituted the other ethnic groups), situated between the river and the town of that name, was occupied by Lithuania in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923.
Ottoman Some proposals for the partition of the Ottoman Empire envisaged international zones at Istanbul/Constantinople or the wider Turkish straits, and possibly also at İzmir/Smyrna. Although the allies of World War I occupied both after the 1918 Armistice of Mudros, the British-led occupation of Istanbul recognised Turkey as de jure sovereign, while the Greek occupation of Smyrna was an attempted annexation. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne re-established Turkish control of both areas.
Shanghai
The Shanghai International Settlement (1845–1943) was an international zone with its own legal system, postal service, and currency.
Tangier