More City-States!

MrHola

Banned
Is there any way we can have more Singapore-like independent city-states? Such as an independent Hong Kong, Macau, Danzig, Vancouver etc. Or is it ASB?
 
Depends on where you're looking for a city-state to turn up, nationalism pretty much doomed such states Danzig is an extreme example I suppose. I've thought about New York (or Neuiw Amsterdam) as a possible citystate of distinctly Dutch Americans staying out of the Union, or a balkanised America.
 
Constantinople might be feasible after WWI or going farther back with a surviving Byzantium. If Rome never joins the Italian Union it could be a city state. Maybe a few Chinese cities could become independent instead of coming together with the mainland.
 
It's hard because you need a pretty specific set of circumstances to get a Singapore-style state. The basic impetus behind Singapore's independence was it's expulsion from the Malaysian Federation because Singapore's large Chinese population impeded the Malaysian government's racist pro-Malay policies.

Perhaps Zanzibar gets taken over by Indians expelled from the African mainland?
 

Susano

Banned
Not too mention Geography - Singapore conviniently sitting at the Strait of Malacca helped, I think ;) It didnt neede much economical hinterland - but independant Vancouver, that could be a bit different then...
 
Not too mention Geography - Singapore conviniently sitting at the Strait of Malacca helped, I think ;) It didnt neede much economical hinterland - but independant Vancouver, that could be a bit different then...

Actually it did have a large economic hinterland too :D Like many of the Malaysian government's decisions, expelling Singapore was a stupid one because Singapore was and is still the principal port for the Malayan Peninsula. This just meant that more money went flowing out of Malaysia.
 
Well there are a few possibilities if decolonization goes a bit differently:

-Goa
-Jerusalem as an autonomous city
-Independent Hong Kong and/or Macao
 
Possibly in a post-WW1 world that ends more in a stalemate on the Eastern front and rather than an independent Poland, all we see is a revived Free City of Krakow.

Perhaps in a world where there isn't a WW2, a lasting Free City of Danzig.
 
Bioko/Fernando Po. Established by the Chinese as a trading post with a garrison, it would gain independence towards the end of the Ming Dynasty...

Well it did happen in an EUII game of mine :D
 
Could the UK set Aden up as a city state, as some sort of strategic staging post for operations either into the Gulf or further East?
 
Danzig is the obvious one in the 20th century, but I might suggest Trieste as well.

I'll admit freely that my knowledge of South American history is (ahem) sketchy, but I have to wonder if there might be a situation in which Uruguay might be subsumed by Argentina, leaving Montevideo as a possible city state?
 
If things go a bit worse for Turkey in the 20th century, and a bit better for Greece/Bulgaria, then perhaps Istanbul?
 
If things go a bit worse for Turkey in the 20th century, and a bit better for Greece/Bulgaria, then perhaps Istanbul?

A prosperous city-state of Constantinople controlling the Straits? While you pleased Midgard, Abdul and Xeno just started sobbing.

I was thinking, perhaps some of those exclaves in India? Goa would be the most obvious one, but you also have Pondicherry and the like on the eastern coast.
 
-Goa
-Independent Hong Kong and/or Macao

All three are highly unlikely. The modern city-state needs more territory than an medieval or ancient city-state to survive. At some point all three will be dependent upon exterior nations for power or water as their populations grow. They will be heavily dependent upon the importation of food stuffs and its likely that the ability of it to provide basic services will not keep up with its neighbor. Singapore is an exception because, as listed above, it location.
 
Danzig is the obvious one in the 20th century, but I might suggest Trieste as well.

I'll admit freely that my knowledge of South American history is (ahem) sketchy, but I have to wonder if there might be a situation in which Uruguay might be subsumed by Argentina, leaving Montevideo as a possible city state?

It could have happened with a Pod during the XIX century. Around 1850, Rosas, virtual president of Argentina, indirectly controlled most of Uruguay through his ally Oribe. But Motevideo resisted, protected by Argentinian exiles, Uruguayan Colorados and by France ang Great Britain. If Rosas hadn`t fallen in 1852, and if this situation had lasted indefinetedly, maybe it could have became a oermanent one. But this renegotiation of the status of Uruguay would probably require a short victorios war against Brazil.
 
Could Berlin have ended up as a city-state separate from the DDR in some alternative resolution of the post-war division of Germany?
 
For obvious reasons, the idea of an independent or autonomous Free Port of Liverpool interests me greatly. It's unlikely to happen as anything other than a total break-up of the UK a la 'For All Time', or possibly in a future-history devolution along the lines of OTL's Welsh Assembly, but it's probably more likely to happen after 1900 than, say, New York or Hong Kong.

How about Brussels? That one might actually happen in the next few years...
 
Danzig is the obvious one in the 20th century, but I might suggest Trieste as well.

I'll admit freely that my knowledge of South American history is (ahem) sketchy, but I have to wonder if there might be a situation in which Uruguay might be subsumed by Argentina, leaving Montevideo as a possible city state?

Uruguay pretty much IS the city-state of Montevideo. It just chooses to call itself Uruguay. Nearly 50% of the people live in Montevideo.

The same is true to a lesser extent for Paraguay and Asuncion.
 
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