A city-state is a region controlled exclusively by a city, usually having sovereignty. Historically, city-states have often been part of larger cultural areas, as in the city-states of ancient Greece (such as Athens, Sparta and Corinth), the Phoenician cities of Canaan (such as Tyre and Sidon), the Mayans of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including sites such as Chichen Itza and El Mirador), the central Asian cities along the Silk Road (which includes Samarkand and Bukhara), or the city-states of Northern Italy (especially Florence and Venice). More recently the neologism citistate has been developed, referring to the city as the center of a 'city region' that includes relocated urban business like factory and company towns, and supply economies like agricultural, timber and mineral extraction whose commodities find a market in the city. The term "city-state" should not be confused with that of "independent city", which refers to a city which is not administered as part of another local government area (eg, a county).

Among the most creative periods in human history are those in which humanity organized itself in small independent centers. Modern Europe owes much of its civilization to two such periods -- the small Greek city-states, and the city-states of Renaissance Italy. However, these small creative groupings usually survived for only short periods of time because they lacked the size and strength to defend themselves against the onslaught of larger social entities. In addition, the success of small regional units coexisting as disunited parts of a loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy or Hellas (Greece), acted as a barrier to the creation of larger national units with greater staying power. Thus, they inevitably gave way to larger organizations of society, the empire and eventually the nation-state. ^[1] Today, only Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City arguably remain autonomous city-states.

Ancient city-states

City-states were common in ancient times. Though sovereign, many such cities joined in killing each other or informal leagues under a high king. In some cases, historical empires or leagues were formed by the right of conquest (e.g., Mycenae, or Rome), but many were formed under peaceful alliances or for mutual protection (e.g., the Peloponnesian League).

Examples include:

• Cities of the Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia (Sumer, Assyria), Anatolia (Hittites, Mitanni), Levant.
• The poleis of Ancient Greece
• Ancient Rome
• Jericho, in the Levant
• Mayan city-states
• Phoenician cities (incl. Carthage)
• Troy, an Anatolian city state in Anatolia
• The city-states of the Shang and Zhou dynasties
• The Yoruba city states of Eko (now Lagos) and Ibadan.

The Middle Ages and the early-modern era

In the Middle Ages, city-states were particularly a feature of what are now Germany, Italy and Russia. A number of them formed the Hanseatic League, which was a significant force in trade for a number of centuries.

The Holy Roman Empire

For further details, see under: Imperial Free City.

During the long history of the Holy Roman Empire, dozens of towns and cities obtained local independence. By the late 18th century, their number had slowly been reduced to around 50, but almost all were eliminated ("mediatized") in 1803; in 1815 , once peace had returned at the end of the Napoleonic era, only Bremen, Hamburg,Lübeck and Frankfurt remained independent. Those four cities became members of the German Confederation (effectively the Holy Roman Empire's successor). Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia in 1866 , while Lübeck, Hamburg and Bremen joined the North German Confederation in 1867 (and then the German Empire). Hamburg and Bremen continued until today as states in the modern Federal Republic of Germany, while Lübeck lost its independence in 1937.

Netherlands

In the time of the Dutch Golden Age of the Seventeenth Century, many Dutch cities - and especially Amsterdam, the biggest and richest of them - exhibited many of the characteristics of city-states, maintaining their own militias and navies and often conducting their own policies and pursuing specific political and commercial interests, with little regard for the rest of the Netherlands.

This was exemplified in the Amsterdam Town Hall erected at the time on the Dam Square, which was sumptuous enough to be later converted into a Royal Palace (which it still is), and having among its decorations a giant painting of Imperial Amsterdam depicted as an enthroned Queen, served by three female slaves representing Asia, Africa and America.

The recent past

In the 19th and 20th centuries, a variety of changing political circumstances left several self-governing city-states as enclaves surrounded by the territory of another state. In Europe, they have included Fiume, Gdańsk, Memel and Trieste. On the edges of Europe they have included Batumi and Tangiers. Elsewhere in the world, European colonialism resulted in a number of tiny colonies that were no bigger than a port and its immediate surroundings, such as Hong Kong, Pondicherry, Singapore, Weihai, and others.

Today, only a handful of political entities reflect the primary features of city-states of the past centuries, namely Singapore, Monaco and the Vatican City. Each of these entities are designated as cities at some point in their existence (occasionally when they were still part of a larger country), and are currently fully sovereign.

Contemporary city-states

Singapore

Singapore is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. About 4.5 million people live and work within 700 square kilometers, making Singapore the second most densely populated country in the world. The entire island functions as a single metropolitan area. The city centre in the south of the island is surrounded by satellite towns, parks, reservoirs and industrial estates, which are connected to the centre and each other by a dense network of roads, expressways and metro railway lines. Singapore has a highly centralised, unitary government with a unicameral legislature. While there are so-called town councils and mayors in Singapore, these are essentially property managers in charge of the maintenance of public housing within their constituency boundaries. They do not represent local authorities with any legislative or executive autonomy from the national government.

Prior to the 19th century, Singapore was a minor part of various regional empires, including Srivijaya, Majapahit, Malacca and Johor. From 1826 to the Japanese conquest, Singapore was the capital of the Straits Settlements, a British colony that included the Settlements of Malacca and Penang along the Straits of Malacca. After the Second World War, Singapore was hived off as a separate colony while the other two Settlements joined the Malay States to form the Federation of Malaya. In 1963 , Singapore merged with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form Malaysia. However, due to a number of problems, Singapore was expelled from the federation in 1965, becoming an independent republic.

Since 1965, Singapore rapidly industrialized and modernized, becoming one of the four "Asian Tigers". In addition to the substantial absolute and per-capita size of its economy, Singapore maintains a significant armed forces. It ranks highly in terms of defence spending and troop size. Singapore may be a small country, but it is a medium to large sized developed city. Despite its small land area, Singapore therefore has a population, economy and armed forces that place it in a similar league to small but full fledged nations like New Zealand, Ireland, Israel and the Nordic countries, rather than semi-independent micro-states. Singapore also maintains a network of diplomatic representation around the world, including membership of international organisations like the UN, the Commonwealth and ASEAN. Singapore places emphasis on self-sufficiency in basic needs, like water. The government also stockpiles other key resources, such as sand and oil. In this way, Singapore tries to avoid over dependence economically, politically or militarily on larger entities. As such, Singapore may represent the most complete contemporary example of a city-state, meeting the full definitions of both a city and a fully sovereign state.

Monaco

The Principality of Monaco is a perfect example of a city-state: Monaco-Ville (the ancient fortified city, which is not a city even though its name means "Monaco-City") and the well known area Monte Carlo are actually districts, not cities. The territory of the country corresponds to the city limits (one government and one town hall, each having specific powers): the Principality of Monaco and the city of Monaco. However, due to its small land area and population size, Monaco is not a fully sovereign state. In July 1918, a treaty was signed providing for limited French protection over Monaco. The treaty, part of the Treaty of Versailles, established that Monegasque policy would be aligned with French political, military, and economic interests. Only in 1993 did Monaco become a member of the United Nations, with full voting rights. In 2002, a new treaty between France and Monaco clarifies that if there are no heirs to carry on the dynasty, the principality will remain an independent nation rather than revert to France (which were the terms of the previous arrangement). Monaco's military defence, however, is still the responsibility of France. Monaco did not receive its first foreign ambassador, the French ambassador, until 16 February 2006. While Monaco cannot now be disputed to be a sovereign state in a de jure sense, its dependency on France means it can be regarded as a European microstate.

Vatican City

Until 1870 , the city of Rome had been controlled by the pope as part of his "papal states". When King Victor Emmanuel II annexed the city in 1870, Pope Pius IX refused to recognise the newly-formed Kingdom of Italy. Because he could not travel through a place that he did not admit existed, Pius IX and his successors each claimed to be a "Prisoner in the Vatican", unable to leave the 0.17-square mile (440,000 m²) papal enclave once they had ascended the papal throne.

The impasse was resolved in 1929 by the Lateran Treaties negotiated by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini between King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius XI. Under this treaty, the Vatican was recognized as an independent state, with the pope as its head. The Vatican City State has its own citizenship, diplomatic corps, flag, and postal system. With a population of less than 1000, it is by far the smallest sovereign country in the world, and widely recognized internationally as such.

Other examples

As well as the above sovereign states, the term "city-state" can also refer to states within federations such as the German states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, the Austrian state of Vienna, the Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the Ethiopian chartered cities (astedader akababiwach) of Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, and the Spanish ciudades autónomas of Ceuta and Melilla. Constitutionally, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar is a city.

In China, the term is sometimes used for the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, due to their long histories as colonies of the British and Portuguese respectively; while neither are legally defined as cities, they enjoy an equivalent status to a province within China, with a high degree of autonomy.

Countries that have a very high proportion of their population within a single city, such as Kuwait and Djibouti, are sometimes referred to as virtual or near city-states, especially when they are relatively small in total land area; however, city-states are not small Nation-states.

Whereas the Nation-states rely on an invented or real common heritage--commonly linguistic, historical, religious, economic, etc--the city-state relies only on the common interest in the well functioning urban center. The urban center and its activity supplies the livelihoods of all the urbanites who inhabit the city-state and its region.

Even though there are no consolidated city-states in the United States, the term consolidated city-state can be used to refer to a city-state that is a subnational entity in which a city and state are coterminous with each other and whose government structures are merged into a single jurisdiction (like a consolidated city-county except that a city and a state are consolidated in the case of a consolidated city-state and the city of a consolidated city-state can be an independent city).

See also

• State
• Nation-state
• Microstate
• Colonies in antiquity
• Consolidated city-state
• List of fictional city-states

References