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A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity, not administered as a part of another local government, whose territory consists of a city and possibly its surrounding territory.[1][2] A city-state can also be defined as a central city and its surrounding villages, which together follow the same law, have one form of government, and share languages, religious beliefs, and ways of life. Historically this included famed cities like Rome, Athens and Carthage,[2] but today only a handful of sovereign city-states exist, with some disagreement as to which states should and should not be considered city-states. A great deal of consensus exists surrounding Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City. Other states that often get cited as being modern city-states include San Marino,[3][4][5] Liechtenstein,[5][6] Andorra,[3][5] Luxembourg,[3] Qatar;[7][8] Brunei,[3] Kuwait[3][7][7][9] and Bahrain.[3][7] Additionally, several cities enjoy a high degree of autonomy despite formally being under the sovereign rule of another country and therefore function in large-part as city-states, and have been identified recently as representative of modern city-states. Hong Kong and Macau, along with independent members of the United Arab Emirates, most notably Dubai and Abu Dhabi, often are cited as such.[3][4][10] Historical examples include the oldest known Sumerian cities of Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city states, such as Thebes or Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); 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 great power); the Maya, Aztecs, and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Monte Albán and Tenochtitlan); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; Venice; Ragusa and many others. Scholars have classed the Viking colonial cities in medieval Ireland, most importantly Dublin, as genuine city-states.[11] The Republic of Ragusa was a maritime city-state that was based in the walled city of Dubrovnik. Within the transalpine part of the Holy Roman Empire the Free Imperial Cities enjoyed a considerable autonomy, buttressed legally by the Lübeck law, which many other cities emulated. Some cities – though also members of different confederacies at that time – officially became sovereign city-states in the 19th century – such as the Canton of Basel City (1833–48), the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (1806–11 and again 1813–71), the Free City of Frankfurt upon Main (1815–66), the Canton of Geneva (1813–48), the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1806–11 and again 1814–71) and the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck (1806–11 and again 1813–71). Another city-state, though lacking sovereignty, was West Berlin (1948–1990), being a state legally not belonging to any other state, but ruled by the Western Allies. They allowed – notwithstanding their overlordship as occupant powers – its internal organisation as one state simultaneously being a city, officially called Berlin (West). Though West Berlin maintained close ties to the West German Federal Republic of Germany, it was legally never part of it. A number of the aforementioned city-states – though partly with altered borders – continue to exist as city-states within today's Federal Republic of Germany and today's Swiss Confederation (see "Cities that are component states of federations" below). Some of the most well-known exemplars of city-state culture in human history include ancient Greek city-states and the merchant city-states of Renaissance Italy, which organised themselves in small independent centres. The success of small regional units coexisting as autonomous actors in loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy or Greece, often prevented their amalgamation into larger national units.[citation needed] However, such small political entities often survived only for short periods because they lacked the resources to defend themselves against incursions by larger states. Thus they inevitably gave way to larger organisations of society, including the empire and the nation state.[12] In Cyprus, the Phoenician settlement of Kition (in present-day Larnaca) comprised a city-state that existed from around 800 BC until the end of the 4th century BC. In the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, settlements were organised by aristocratic groups, Buddhist leaders, and others into autonomous or semi-autonomous city-states which were referred to as mueang and 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 which paid tribute to still larger ones until reaching the apex in cities like Ayutthaya; Bagan; Bangkok and others which served as centers of Southeast Asian royalty. The system existed until the 19th century when colonization by European powers, and Thailand's (then known as Siam) resulted in the adoption of the modern concept of statehood.[13][14][15] |
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