"A city-state is a sovereign state consisting of a city and its dependent territories. Historically this included famous cities like Rome, Athens, Carthage and the Italian city-states during the Renaissance, but today only a handful of sovereign city-states exist, with some disagreement as to which states should and should not be considered as city-states. However, a great deal of consensus exists that the term properly applies to Singapore, Monaco and Vatican City."@en . . .