City-state is an independent or nearly independent state in which political and cultural activities are concentrated in a single urban center. City-states were often ruled by a king, by a dictator, or by a small group of powerful citizens. In some cases, political life was controlled by city dwellers, and in other cases by people of both the countryside and the city. The city-state had its fullest development in ancient times. The most famous examples were Athens and Sparta in Greece, and Rome before the formation of the Roman Empire in 27 B.C. During the Middle Ages, which lasted from about the A.D. 400’s through the 1400’s, some German and Italian cities in the Holy Roman Empire became self-governing and almost entirely independent. They included Florence, Genoa, Milan, and Venice in Italy, and Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck in Germany.
