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A city-state is a region controlled exclusively by a city, and usually having sovereignty.
City-states were common in ancient times. Though sovereign, many such cities joined in formal or informal leagues under a high king. In some cases historical empires or leagues were formed by the right of conquest (eg, Mycenae, or Rome), but many were formed under peaceful alliances or for mutual protection (eg, the Peloponnesian League).
In the Middle Ages, city-states were particularly a feature of what are now Germany and Italy. A number of them formed the Hanseatic League, which was a significant force in trade for a number of centuries.
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Modern-day city-states
Monaco
The Principality of Monaco is often described as a city-state, although in addition to Monaco-Ville its territory includes another town, Monte-Carlo.
Singapore
The port city of Singapore was established by the British East India Company in 1819, and became a British crown colony in 1867. Except for a brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II, Singapore remained a British colony until 1963. In that year, Singapore joined Malaya, Sarawak, and Sabah in the new federation of Malaysia.
Unrest marked the years during which Singapore was part of Malaysia. Race-riots between the majority Chinese and minority Malays in the city were frequent, and the federal government, dominated by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), clashed with the state government, which was dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP). The UMNO feared that the PAP would challenge their dominant position in the federal government. Finally, Singapore was expelled from the federation in 1965, becoming an independent sovereign state.
After Singapore's involuntary independence, it rapidly industrialized and modernized, becoming one of the four "Asian Tigers".
Vatican City State
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.
Other examples
As well as the above sovereign states, the term "city-state" can also refer to federal states such as the German states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, the Austrian state of Vienna, and the Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Countries that have a very high proportion of their population within a single city are sometimes referred to as virtual or near city-states, Kuwait being one such example. In China, the term is sometimes used for the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
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).
City-states in history
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, Danzig, Memel and Trieste. On the edges of Europe they have included Batumi and Tangiers. For others which are still in existence, see above under "Modern-day city states".
Elsewhere in the world, European colonialism resulted a number of tiny colonies that were no bigger than a port and its immediate surroundings, such as Zanzibar, Pondicherry, Weihai, and others. A few of these continue to exist as separate political entities, either as fully independent city-states, like Singapore, or highly autonomous territories of the country to which they are now part, such as Hong Kong.
Fiume (Rijeka)
The Adriatic port of Fiume, on the Istrian peninsula, was the main port of Hungary (under Habsburg rule since 1466). The city's population was predominately made up of Croats until the 19th century, when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy began to encourage Italian immigration as a counter-balance to the rise of Slavic nationalism.
During World War I, Italy signed a secret treaty with the Allies in 1915, in which it was promised the Habsburg lands on the Adriatic in return for active military support. However, at the end of the war, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson believed the city should be given to the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia).
The Italians felt bitterly cheated out of what had been promised to them. The Fascist and poet Gabriele D'Annunzio organized a paramilitary force of demobilized soldiers and thugs, the Arditi, who he dressed in black shirts. On September 12, 1919, D'Annunzio led the Arditi into Fiume, and seized control of the city.
D'Annunzio was proclaimed dictator. He remained dictator of Fiume until December 1920, when the Italian government sent a battleship into Fiume to bombard the municipal palace. D'Annunzio surrendered, and Fiume was proclaimed a "Free State" under a provisional government. Mussolini, emboldened by D'Annunzio's temporarily successful seizure of Fiume, marched on Rome with his own Fascist "black shirts", and seized control of the Italian government in March 1922. Local Fascists seized control of Fiume at the same time.
In 1924, Mussolini negotiated the Treaty of Rome by which the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ceded Fiume to Italy. The city was formally annexed to Italy on March 16, 1924.
Fiume was occupied by the Germans in 1943, and was then liberated by Yugoslav partisans in 1945. After World War II, the Italian population was evacuated and the city was annexed to Yugoslavia. Today, it is the Croatian city of Rijeka.
Danzig (Gdańsk)
The Baltic port city of Danzig (the German name for the city called "Gdańsk" in Polish) was made into the "Free City of Danzig", a so-called free city, in 1920.
The city, formerly part of the German province of West Prussia, had an overwhelmingly German population of about 400,000. With the re-emergence of a Polish nation in the aftermath of World War I, West Prussia became the "Polish Corridor", giving that country access to the Baltic Sea, but dividing East Prussia from the rest of Germany. This left a large German minority living on Polish territory. Because of Danzig's importance, the League of Nations created the free city as a compromise, so that it would be part of neither nation; this compromise failed to satisfy Poland, which wanted the city's port facilities (and to regain a one-time Polish city), nor the local population, who wanted to remain a part of Germany.
Resentment over the status of Danzig was a factor in Adolf Hitler's coming to power, and the city-state came under the control of a local Nazi party. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and Danzig was annexed to Germany. In March 1945, though, the city was occupied by the Red Army. The German population was largely expelled to Germany, and the city was finally restored to Polish sovereignty under its old name of Gdańsk.
Danzig had also been briefly a "free city" from 1807 to 1813, during the Napoleonic era.
Memel (Klaipėda)
The port city of Memel had a similar history to Danzig. Originally founded in 1252 by the Teutonic Knights on the Baltic Sea, it eventually became part of Prussia, and thus Germany.
The Treaty of Versailles (1919) detached the city from Germany, and it came under administration by the Allied and Associated Powers Commission.
In January 1923, the newly-independent Lithuania, invaded Memel (which had once been Lithuanian territory) and expelled the French garrison without a fight. In 1924 the League of Nations acknowledged the fait accompli, and Memel was incorporated into Lithuania as a semi-autonomous district.
In March 1939, Hitler sent German warships to Memel, and delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania to surrender the city or face war. The Lithuanians surrendered, in Hitler's last bloodless conquest before World War II. After the war, the German population was expelled, and the city was returned to Lithuania as the city of Klaipėda.
Trieste
The Adriatic port of Trieste, was the chief port of the Austria-Hungary prior to World War I. The population of the region was predominantly Italian.
The Italian army conquered what became the province of Venezia Giulia during the war, and it was annexed to Italy once peace came.
At the end of the European war in May 1945, Yugoslav troops captured the city. In 1947, as part of the post-war peace negotiations, the city and its surrounding territory became the Free Territory of Trieste, under United Nations protection. The territory was divided into "Zone A", which included the city of Trieste and was under Allied control administered by the United States and the United Kingdom, and "Zone B", the surrounding territory, administered by Yugoslavia. In 1954, Yugoslavia annexed Zone B to its constituent republic of Slovenia, and Zone A reverted to Italy.
Batumi
Batumi, a seaport on the Black Sea, was controlled by the Ajaris, who were conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. Russia annexed Ajara in 1878, but the Ottomans retook it during World War I. In 1918, British forces took the petroleum port of Batumi from the Ottomans and declared it a free port.
As Allied intervention in Russia wound down, the city was taken by the Bolsheviks after the British withdrawl in 1920. The port became part of the Ajari ASSR, within what is now the independent Republic of Georgia.
Tangiers
When the Sultanate of Morocco was divided into French and Spanish zones under the Treaty of Fez in 1912, Tangiers was given special status. The Convention of 1923 made Tangiers an "international city" governed by a legislative assembly of 26 foreign representatives (from Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden and the United States). Executive power was vested in the "Committee of Control", composed of the consuls of the signatory powers.
Mixed courts with French, Spanish, British and Belgian judges administered justice; Arabs and Jews had their own separate court systems. Foreign powers operated a number of postal systems in the city, and Spain, France and Britain issued stamps for Tangiers.
When Morocco gained independence in 1956, Tangiers was restored to it.
The Middle Ages and the early-modern era
The Holy Roman Empire
- For further details, see under: Imperial Free City.
During the long history of the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Germany and neighbouring countries), 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 and Hamburg remained independent. Those two cities became members of the German Confederation (effectively the empire's successor), and joined the North German Confederation in 1867 (and thence the German Empire. They have continued until today as states in the modern Federal Republic of Germany.
Italy
In the early Middle Ages, Italy split up into a miriad of local and regional states. With the northern regions of the country having been heavily-urbanised for centuries, it was a natural consequence that a number of cities not only established themselves as city-states, but were able to compete effectively with other states.
Examples include Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi, and perhaps most famously, Venice.
Ragusa (Dubrovnik)
The Adriatic port of Ragusa (today the Croatian city of Dubrovnik) was a sporadically-independent city until the early 18th century. Briefly a Russian possession, it was then annexed to Napoleon's French Empire. In 1815 it became part of the Austrian Empire.
Cracow (Kraków)
The formerly Polish city of Kraków was briefly a nominally independent republic between 1815 and 1846, when it was annexed to the Austrian Empire.
Ancient city-states
The many poleis of Ancient Greece are classical examples. The city-states of the Maya in Meso-America are also noteworthy.
Examples include:
- Ancient Rome
- Jericho, in the Levant
- Mayan city-states
- Phoenician cities (incl. Carthage)
- Sumer, in Mesopotamia