city-state

American  

[sit-ee-steyt] / ˈsɪt iˌsteɪt /

noun

• city-states
  plural

1. a sovereign state consisting of an autonomous city and, especially historically, any dependent settlements or territories.

   The Corinthian order of architecture is named for its legendary origin in the ancient Greek city-state of Corinth.

   Singapore’s role in shaping global entrepreneurship has further strengthened that city-state's position in the world economy.

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city-state British  

noun

1. a state consisting of a sovereign city and its dependencies. Among the most famous are the great independent cities of the ancient world, such as Athens, Sparta, Carthage, Thebes, Corinth, and Rome

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• city-states
  plural

Etymology

Origin of city-state

First recorded in 1890–95

Explanation

A city-state is an independent city — and sometimes its surrounding land — which has its own government, completely separate from nearby countries. Monaco is a city-state. Today, there are only five city-states that are truly self-governing, but in the past this was more common. In fact, well-known cities such as Rome and Athens were city-states, and the entire country of Italy was made up of independent merchant city-states during the Renaissance. These days, government tends to be concentrated in a larger country, rather than split into small, sovereign cities.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

city-state city-states

Officials for the city-state said an initial data leak occurred between 7 and 12 August.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

SINGAPORE—A Singaporean real-estate billionaire is suing Brookfield Asset Management over alleged breaches of contract and confidentiality related to a proposed joint venture to buy industrial properties in the Southeast Asian city-state.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

Singapore Airlines should gain from the sporting event, after recently announcing a partnership with Southwest Airlines to connect travelers between the city-state and nearly 120 airports in the U.S. airline’s network.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026

As a major electronics hub, the city-state has seen a significant increase in the production of memory chips and server components that are essential for the data centres that power AI tools.

From Barron's ● May 25, 2026

The Mexica were subordinated by a nearby city-state on the shore, and the tlatoani was forced to send Mexica men as conscripts for its wars.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Patri Friedman, a software engineer and grandson of economist Milton Friedman, first tried building floating city-states, and then launched a fund to seed “startup cities.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026

The region's city-states -- Ur, Uruk, and Lagash among them -- developed complex political and religious systems that became the blueprint for later societies.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 27, 2025

“Antigone” was performed during an uneasy respite from war with other Greek city-states.

From Salon ● Feb. 25, 2024

Gleick traces the history of conflicts to the first known war over water nearly 4,500 years ago between the ancient Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma in what is now southern Iraq.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2023

For much of the last century most Mayanists believed that at its height—200 to 900 a.d., roughly speaking—the Maya realm was divided into a hugger-mugger of more or less equivalent city-states.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann