Modern city-state possibilities?

CaptainCalvert

Gibraltar was officially made a city on 29 August 2022 (and should have been in 1842). However, technically it's British so doesn't count. Jersey would be disqualified as St Helier isn't a city.
But how about Hamburg, Washington DC, Canberra, Kuala Lumpur? Hamburg is a city state but within a federation, while the other three are all effectively state-like cities but within federations so not quite so clear cut.
 

Vassonx

oshron said:
if it counts, Mongolia. kinda. the only real city in the whole country is Ulaanbataar, the capital, and it hosts so much of the population that practically the entire rest of the country is empty grasslands where traditionalists do their thing.
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As a Mongolian, I deeply agree with this notion. There is an in-joke that Mongolia is not a country with a city, but a city with a country. Ulaanbaatar takes up such a large share of the country's GDP and population, along with its relatively high autonomy has made it a de facto state-inside-a-state. Ulaanbaatar is a very neoliberal and hypercapitalist place to live in, and a stark difference to the rest of Mongolia.
 
An Thuong

An Thuong

Penang/George Town for basically the same reason as Singapore OTL. (Was in the Straits Settlement, multi-ethnic).

Sai Gon was the main base of support for the Republic of Viet Nam; which was unpopular across most of its territory. Perhaps when the Americans withdrew in '73 their old guard see the writing on the wall and rather than attempt to hold onto the whole territory invest more in the defence of the city alone. To this day a lot of people who were born and bred there refer to themselves as 'Saigonese', although that identity doesn't necessarily supersede being Vietnamese. Most inhabitants also still call it that (personally tired of other Westrons 'correcting' me - "well Ackshually its called Ho Chi Minh City". No disrespect to the man himself as he was one of the great statesmen of the 20th century.)

In a really divergent Central Powers victory timeline then Liverpool might be a Danzig of the British Isles. Many people there protest that they're 'Scouse, not English' and it was often referred to as the 'capital of Ireland' once upon a time (although also has a large Welsh influence and the oldest extant Black and Chinese communities in the UK).
 
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An Thuong

An Thuong

Tangiers had a long history of autonomy/independence and its location makes it fairly viable as an independent city state. It had a reputation for being very tolerant and bohemian which could be the catalyst for it remaining independent. There was a time when gay people would flee Europe to Tangiers to experience said tolerance. Perhaps it could have also been a refuge for pied noirs, with that demographic alteration ensuring its independence.

Odessa as a de facto Jewish state created as a refuge during a very different Russian Civil War.
 
Crazy Boris

Crazy Boris

Banned
A few ideas from East Asia

Shanghai: Could emerge from the chaos of early 20th century China as a city state, taking advantage of its foreign connections to win overseas support to keep other Chinese factions at bay.

Busan: If the Korean War goes really, really, really bad for the South, Busan could be a rump city-state for the Syngman Rhee-gime

Macau: Hong Kong has already been mentioned, may as well throw in their little brother.
 
VadisDeProfundis

VadisDeProfundis

Trieste could probably become a permanently independent city state, or at least one that would be independent until the end of the Cold War. It had an autonomous status for a decade or so IOTL. Maybe some PoD involving a stronger Yugoslavia that still isn't allowed to completely take over Stria, coupled with an Italy that for some reason, after the war, just isn't all that attractive or powerful enough to force the issue. But come the end of the Cold War, it would be difficult to keep Trieste sustainable.
 

drakeVL

Happy Nihilist said:
There is only one proper city-state in the world, Singapore. Which other ones could have emerged post-1900?

Some possibilities:
- Jerusalem after UN partition plan goes into effect.
- Kaliningrad post-1991 after having been made a SSR.
- Berlin as a compromise during Cold War.

EDIT: Specifically interested in cities over 1 million.
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after ww2 there was a referendum in belgium over the return of the king
majority wanted him back but walloons threatent violence etc over it because the lost the vote and they installed his son instead
have him come back and escalate it and you might end up with a split belgium & brussels as city state since neither side want to give it to the other
though not sure how viable it is since the airport isnt in brussels itself & no port either
 
The_Persian_Cat

The_Persian_Cat

There are a few that come to mind. There's the perennial examples of Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Macau, and Istanbul -- but these seem less likely than ever. Istanbul is totally a part of Turkey; meanwhile, China's control over Hong Kong and Macau, and Israel's over Jerusalem, are more secure than ever, and that doesn't look like it's going to change.

However, I can see Aden potentially seceeding from Yemen. It has changed hands several times in the Yemeni Civil War, but it remains the de facto capital of the Southern Transitional Council, the UAE-backed government. That's one of four main factions in the Yemeni Civil War (the other three being the Houthis, based in/around North Yemen; the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, which controls most of Hadhramaut; and various al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated factions, which don't control a lot of territory but sort of proliferate throughout the country).
It's possible (though probably not too likely) that Yemen will split up into North Yemen, Hadhramaut, and Aden. If I had to put money on it, though, I'd say it's more likely that Yemen splits into a GCC-backed South and an Iran-backed North; or more likely still, that it doesn't split up at all, and remains a theatre for confused endless fighting, like Syria or Iraq.

Another possibility might be Sevastopol. Russia already considers Sevastopol a federal city (alongside Moscow and Saint Petersburg), meaning at least officially, it's administered autonomously from the rest of Crimea. Of course, Sevastopol is under Russian military occupation just like the rest of Crimea, so it's hard to see this as anything more than a symbolic status right now. But who knows how the Ukraine War will turn out? I don't think Russia's occupation of any Ukrainian territory is sustainable in the long run, but I guess all things are possible. And maybe Ukraine and Russia will compromise and create an independent Sevastopol. It'll be just like the Free City of Danzig!

Finally, there's Nigeria. On one hand, Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and is making great strides in development. But on the other hand, there are major divides between North and South, urban and rural populations, and between the rich and poor. There are several secessionist movements, from the predominantly-Igbo region of Biafra, to the Hausa/Fulani Muslims in the North, to the Yoruba people in the southwest -- and these groups (and others) are unevenly represented in the military, government, economy, etc. What's more, despite being a republic, several Nigerian states have monarchies. For example, the Muslim states of Sokoto and Kano are ruled by sultans as constitutional monarchies. I wonder if Sokoto would ever proclaim independence from Nigeria? I doubt it -- Muslims make up the majority of the Nigerian military, and Sokoto is on the front lines against Boko Haram, so succession isn't really in anyone's interest at the moment. Ditto for the Yoruba Christian-majority state of Oyo. But, if Nigeria collapses into civil war again, maybe all these little kingdoms -- united into a federation, like the UAE or Malaysia -- could break away?
 

FairlyUninformedGraduate

Gone Fishin'
How about a messy Russian civil war post revolution; say the central powers collapse earlier, so the allies can send more of an intervention force, which drives the bolsheviks out of Petrograd in support of a cadet branch of the royal family. The republic controls the countryside but cannot defeat the bolsheviks in Moscow. So you get the russian monarchy in Petrograd, the soviet republic of russia in Moscow, then the countryside around is held by the republic with a base elsewhere but granting access through it to the bolsheviks in return for a peace? Over time Petrograd becomes a Monaco of the Baltic?
 

Interdimensional Nomad

The Free City of Danzig in a world where the Nazi Party never came to power and the Weimar Republic lived on. A majority-German city that wants to reunite with Germany but is constitutionally forbidden to, with a persecuted Polish minority that Poland tries to protect in what ways it can. Feels almost like a Cyprus-esque situation, and without WW2 it could continue on to the present. I doubt a Weimar Germany would try to take it back; they would know just about the entire international community would be against it. And I doubt Poland would want to take it either; such a German-majority place is probably indigestible for them.

So the place could easily continue existing as a de facto city-state, reluctantly building its own identity for itself as reunification with Germany becomes less and less plausible, struggling to keep the peace between its German and Polish citizens, and looking for an economic niche for itself on a Baltic coast already full of port cities. Could be quite an interesting place.
 
PolishMagnet

PolishMagnet

Taking the Israel-Palestine conflict from two sides:

-Gaza, if Israel gobbles up the entirety of the west bank, could be propped up by EU investment.
-Tel Aviv, in a world where Jewish settlement was blocked or the Israel project was shut down by an Arab invasion at some point, could be propped up by American or UN intervention
 

Ogrelord420

Istanbul could have if Greece held East Thrace in 1922 instead of withdrawing when the Brits told them to. Then a deal could have been made to make Istanbul a neutral free city.
 

symojjo

I could see a League of Nations Mandate for Sopron (Ödenburg) or some other multiethnic city in eastern europe that would become an independent city state in the interwar period or after ww2
 

Blue cat

Roches said:
Montreal, after Quebec separates from Canada, could separate from Quebec and become a city-state.
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Yeah the thought occurred to me that some Canadian cities might have become city states in an alternate time line where Canadian Politics took a different course.
Another possibility might have been Vancouver, if some or all of the Western Provinces had gone in a different political direction.

Vancouver in that context might have stretched as far as Hope to the East and perhaps Whistler or Pemberton to the North :) Especially if it wanted a defensible land border with what used to be the rest of Canada :)

Perhaps we could have seen fresh water Navies on Harrison Lake :)

In that context the status of Vancouver Island would likely have been important as well but a Vancouver that included Vancouver island might have been pushing the definition of a City State :)

All of this is just humorous conjecture about a fictional alternative time line.
 
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