City states and more

Hi Recently I have been interested in city states. I have a few questions and a challenge of sorts. First what is your defition of one ex. how large can it be etc. Second could more survive to the present? Could they be as successful as Singapore? If they can how would this happen? Thanks in advance.
 
Rough definition: pretty much a nation-state that is centered around one city for most of its economic life. It also has to be defined in terms of being part of that city, not a common ethnic heritage like true nation-states.

I think the Venice is about a large as a city-state can grow. Maybe a little bigger. As it was, it was the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean for a while.

I don't think that city-states can last for long after the middle ages. After that, success in war becomes much more about manpower and wealth, neither of which are in large supply to city-states. Also, to get real wealth and power after the middle ages, you need colonies, and colonies require a much larger initial investment that city-states can afford. Thus, after the middle ages, it becomes much harder to maintain your independance on your own against much larger nation-states. You are pretty much forced into being the vassal of one or the other. You can only maintain some degree of independance by playing the major powers off against each other/ being neutral in pretty much every major war. After the rise of nationalism, it becomes pretty much impossible, with nationalism undermining your state frm within. There are only three city-states in existance today, and two of them were formed from deals between larger nation-states (Singapore, Vatican)
 
Well, Monaco, San Marino, Luxembourg, Leichtenstein, Andorra, and The Vatican all survived to the present day in Europe, so it's not impossible.

I suppose some Caribbean Island nations could be considered City-States.
 

Susano

Banned
Well, i think a case can be made about the Vatican, as the whole country is (part of) a city. But, considering most of that city lies within another country, that is pushing it.

Either way its a difference. The state is not defined by any city, its defined by the feudal, ecclestial liege lord, the Pope.
 
Either way its a difference. The state is not defined by any city, its defined by the feudal, ecclestial liege lord, the Pope.

I'm not sure I agree with you - I more favour Wikipedia's definition of it being any state which centrally administrates from any city with no level of local government for that capital (i.e. the national government IS the city's only layer of government) - but going by your definition, shouldn't you allow San Marino on the list, since it has and had no feudal overlord?
 
I'm not sure I agree with you - I more favour Wikipedia's definition of it being any state which centrally administrates from any city with no level of local government for that capital (i.e. the national government IS the city's only layer of government) - but going by your definition, shouldn't you allow San Marino on the list, since it has and had no feudal overlord?

No, San Marino is not a city state. It has nine municipalities and the capital is only the third largest of these. Serravalle and Borgo Maggiore have more inhabitants. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipalities_of_San_Marino.
 
Athens was a city stat, with colonies, as was Venice.

For you latin scholars out there, was Rome run by a separate state government than that which ran the city itself? I don't know the intricacies if roman municipal government, but I think that it could, ultimately be a city state.

Singapore of course.

Hong Kong could be a city state since it enjoys special status within the PRC. Don't get hung up on this idea.

I think that to be a city state you need to retain a particular identity and allegiance to a municipality, and that the mnicipality extend unique control over itself, and perhaps other areas.

I think that quintessential city states would be Athens, Rome and Venice. But that is only MHO.

:)
 
Susano said:
Well, purely geographically yes. But structurally/historically there is a difference.

Certainly there's some semantic tension over whether they're "true" city states, but really I don't think the OP cares if they're neutered feudal duchies whose territory was widdled down to a mere city or a 1,000 year old democratic urban republic (with 9 administrative divisions) ;).

Places like Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Pondicherry, etc. are all various examples of cities who have or had a great degree of autonomy (or are fully sovereign), enough that they could be considered city-states insofar that they are largely urban areas with a reasonable amount of (often uninhabited) surronding territory.

In the Middle East up until the 20th century "city-states" were the most common type of gov't you'd see. Places like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Quatar and Bahrain are still largely city states or a few very large cities and nothing inbetween (for obvious reasons: desert :D). They're probably the closest things we have resembling the old Greek city states and such in the modern world.
 
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