From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A city-state is a region controlled exclusively by a city. City-states were common in the ancient period and gradually were combined into nations.
The many poleis of ancient Greece are classical examples. Other examples of city-states in history include:
- Sumer
- Phoenician cities and Carthage
- Maya civilization
- Venice and other Italian marine republics
- Ragusa/Dubrovnik
- Szczecin - 12th century
- Wolin - 12th century
- Danzig (1806-1813), (1921-1939)
The term city-state also has the following contemporary usages:
- a city that is a state by itself: the independent states Monaco, Singapore, San Marino and Vatican City
- the states of Germany: Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg
- the Chinese Special Administrative Regions: Hong Kong and Macau.
