History Main / LandOfOneCity

* ''Anime/CodeGeassR2'': {{Exaggerated|Trope}}. Zero announces the formation of [[spoiler: the United States of Japan]] by declaring its first territory (and thus "city") to be the very ''room'' he is currently broadcasting from. Everybody reacts just about how you'd expect them to by this point since it's [[RefugeInAudacity Zero]] and all.

** UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC has been trying for ''decades'' to be recognized as a fully-fledged US state rather than its unique status as a federal territory. It has more people than the states of Vermont and Wyoming, but its current status as a territory means it lacks voting representation in Congress (DC residents couldn't even vote for the president until 1961). Even though voters in DC have overwhelmingly approved these measures whenever they're brought to the ballots, Congress has final say, and all attempts at recognizing DC as a state have languished in DevelopmentHell.

* UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC has been trying for ''decades'' to be recognized as a US state, even though that would make it the only state composed of a single city. It has more people than the fully-fledged states of Vermont and Wyoming, but its current status as a territory means it lacks voting representation in Congress (DC residents couldn't even vote for the president until 1961). Even though voters in DC have overwhelmingly approved these measures whenever they're brought to the ballots, Congress has final say, and all attempts at recognizing DC as a state have languished in DevelopmentHell.

* UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC has been trying for ''decades'' to be recognized as a US state. Despite its small size, it has more people than the fully-fledged states of Vermont and Wyoming, but its current status as a territory means it lacks voting representation in Congress (DC residents couldn't even vote for the president until 1961). Even though voters in DC have overwhelmingly approved these measures whenever they're on the ballots, all attempts at recognizing DC as a state have languished in DevelopmentHell.

* UsefulNotes/{{WashingtonDC}} has been trying for ''decades'' to be recognized as a US state. Despite its small size, it has more people than the fully-fledged states of Vermont and Wyoming, but its current status as a territory means it lacks voting representation in Congress (DC residents couldn't even vote for the president until 1961). Even though voters in DC have overwhelmingly approved these measures whenever they're on the ballots, all attempts at recognizing DC as a state have languished in DevelopmentHell.

Compare BritainIsOnlyLondon when an entire Real-Life country is reduced into consisting of nothing more than its most popular city, and DevelopingNationsLackCities when a poor nation doesn't have a single major city. If the country is also a monarchy, see MicroMonarchy.

* ''WebVideo/DreamSMP'': L'Manburg (and to an extent, Manburg)'s territory primarily consisted of the territory encompassed within the walls of the faction. Even after the annexation of Rutabagville (a small, enclosed snowy mountain, which was basically abandoned after the Manburg-Pogtopia War) during the Manburg era and of Pogtopia (an isolated underground ravine where LaResistance against Manburg was based in) during the Tubbo administration, the lands are rarely accessed and are essentially L'Manburgian territory InNameOnly, to the point that they are completely ignored during the Doomsday War and thus stand to this day.

** By the time of the books, this is somewhat true of most of the nations in the main continent of the setting. The powerful nations may have large borders, at least on a map, but they only have one city that deserves the name, and usually hold little if any authority beyond that city. Most of the countryside is populated by autonomous villages.

** UsefulNotes/UnitedArabEmirates is nominally a federation of seven self-governing Arab city-states. The cities of Dubai and Adu Dhabi hold 60% of the country's population between them (that's just the ''cities'', not the emirates they're capitals of... which aren't much more) and so tend to dominate the affairs of the other five.

* City-states were the default form of government in Ancient Greece, though many were small enough that it'd be more accurate to call them "town-states." They incorporated numerous surrounding settlements and townships, minimally the number of farmsteads needed to feed the urban dwellers. They were much smaller than medieval and renaissance Italian city-states like Florence and Venice, which tended to integrate a lot more territory and settlements (the largest, Athens/Attica, had less than half of the population of the medieval Republic of Florence - and Florence was smaller than Milan or Venice). Most of these places started out genuine city-states with little-to-no influence beyond sight of the city walls; but the more famous ones over time either conquered[=/=]puppeted[=/=]bought out their less successful neighbors, sent out fleets to establish control over maritime trade routes[=/=]rivals, or both.
* Also many of the smaller states that made up the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire. Fully 51 were officially deemed ''Freie und Reichsstädte'' (Free and Imperial Cities) as of 1792; while a number of the monarchies, prince-bishoprics, and abbeys sharing representation in the Imperial Diet were often even smaller than most of said cities. There were even five ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Village Reichsdörfer]]'' directly under the emperor's authority[[note]]yes, they were as small as the name implied[[/note]] on record as of 1803.

** This also applies to some of the states that made and make up the successors of the Holy Roman Empire. For instance, one of the cantons of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Switzerland}} Swiss Federation]] is the self-explanatory one of Basel-Stadt (Basel city, as opposed to the canton of Basel-Land (Basel countryside)). The [[UsefulNotes/TheBerlinRepublic Federal Republic of Germany]] contains three city-states, of which UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} and the Free and Hanseatic City of UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}} consist only of one city, and the third, the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen consists of two (Bremen proper and Bremerhaven). This is also reflected in the fact that these three states do not have a ''Ministerpräsident'' (prime minister), but a ''Bürgermeister'' (burgomaster or mayor). Modern-day Germany [[WhatCouldHaveBeen nearly got another city state]] with Lübeck, but the Nazis rescinded its sovereignty (Hitler reportedly hated the place) and the German constitutional court was unwilling to give it back in the 1950s or grant a petition to have a vote on Lübeck becoming a city-state. Lübeck today has about 250 000 inhabitants, and that is rounding up.

* The Republic of Ragusa on the Balkan side of the Adriatic, like Venice, started out under East Roman suzerainty and unlike them had little luck expanding beyond the neighboring coastline and offshore islands. However despite paying tribute (read: protection money) to the Venetian lagoon, Buda, Kostantiniyye, and Wien in turn; its Romance dialect being slowly supplanted by the language of the Slavic hinterlands; and being all but leveled by a powerful earthquake in 1667 it retained it's internal oligarchic self-government and an at least semi-respectable fleet for almost 1000 years until the coming of Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century.
* There are numerous first-order administrative divisions worldwide (states, provinces, counties, or what have you) that are made up of a single city. They all qualify for this trope if the central government permits them to handle their own affairs. Berlin and St. Petersburg are good examples, while others might be in doubt.
** UsefulNotes/{{Seoul}} is an explicit example, as it is the only "Special City" while other major cities are just called metropolitan cities. In fact, [[UsefulNotes/{{South Korea}} South Koreans]] make fun of this by using a self-deprecating meme like "Republic of Seoul" which criticizes capital-centric behavior.
* "Free cities" Gdansk (Danzig), Fiume, Memel (Klaipėda) created after UsefulNotes/WW1 and Triest after UsefulNotes/WW2. Only Gdansk/Danzig stayed independent more than a few years, though. West Berlin wasn't officially called that, but it probably qualifies too.
** West Berlin [[ZigzaggedTrope is a special case]]. Officially, the city was a free and independent entity jointly ruled by the Mayor of (West) Berlin and the Western Allies (US, UK, France), and West German laws had no legal effect inside West Berlin. Practically, the city was ''de facto'' part of the ''Bundesrepublik Deutschlands'', as the citizens of West Berlin held West German citizenship [[note]]technically, West German citizenship was also extended to the citizens of the ''Deutsche Demokratische Republik'', but for obvious reasons, this could not kick in until the person was actually on West German soil to claim it, something [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall East Germany went to insane lengths to prevent]][[/note]], West German currency was the official legal tender of West Berlin, when Bonn passed a law, West Berlin would enact the same law to keep legal parity, and West Berlin sent non-voting observer delegates to the ''Bundestag'' and ''Bundesrat'' in Bonn. Still, the Allies blocked official incorporation of West Berlin into the ''BRD'' in 1950 to avoid a serious flare-up in east-west tensions (the relevant law in the Berlin Constitution passed then didn't kick in until 1990, at the time of reunification). Additionally, West Berliners were not subject to the West German compulsory military service for young men[[labelnote: *]]Not only that, you ''couldn't'' join the military living in Berlin, even if you volunteered. You had to move to West Germany proper if you were keen on joining the military[[/labelnote]], which was a major reason why West Berlin was famously full of anti-establishment punks. The fact that West Berliners were West German citizens but not in West Germany led to the bizarre situation where a West Berliner could not vote in West German elections, but ''could'' run and even be elected to office in them (as happened with former West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, who would eventually be elected Chancellor of West Germany in the '70s.) East Berlin was claimed to be under the same status by the Western Allies, but apart from regular protest notes, this had less and less of an effect on daily life in East Berlin as years went on.
* Within Bosnia and Herzegovina, there's the unusual case of the Brčko District. Bosnia is a federation of two entities: Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republic of Srpska. Brčko, a multi-ethic city (Brčko's Serbian and Bosniak population is split roughly 50%/40%, and its previous territorial arrangement saw it almost evenly split between the two republics), was considered a special case during the country's independence negotiations, and the solution was that Brčko would become its own federal entity, ostensibly shared by both Bosnia and Srpska, but in-practice as a largely autonomous free city.

* ''LetsPlay/DreamSMP'': L'Manburg (and to an extent, Manburg)'s territory primarily consisted of the territory encompassed within the walls of the faction. Even after the annexation of Rutabagville (a small, enclosed snowy mountain, which was basically abandoned after the Manburg-Pogtopia War) during the Manburg era and of Pogtopia (an isolated underground ravine where LaResistance against Manburg was based in) during the Tubbo administration, the lands are rarely accessed and are essentially L'Manburgian territory InNameOnly, to the point that they are completely ignored during the Doomsday War and thus stand to this day.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': While Equestria is depicted as a fairly large country containing multiple distinct cities, all other species live within isolated self-governing settlements. The changelings, kirin and yaks are the most straightforward examples, being single large settlements with its own rulership, with the caveat that the former live in a giant hive and the latter two are just villages; the Crystal Empire is that in name only, as it otherwise conists of a single city in the middle of a frozen waste; the griffons lack a formal government, but most live in the run-down city of Griffonstone; and the hippogriffs/seaponies technicaly have two cities, Mount Aris and the UnderwaterCity of Seaquestria in the flooded caves below it, but these function as two halves of a single city and share their government and most of their population.

* UsefulNotes/{{Monaco}} and UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}} are RealLife examples, while [[UsefulNotes/VaticanCity the Vatican]] is an enclave ''within'' the city of UsefulNotes/{{Rome}} making it, tecnically, a Land of One City ''Block''.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeofSigmar'': The Cities of Sigmar are independent states (in a confederation under Sigmar the God-King) centered around large cities (who share their names with the state), with the main urban area varying from as little as ten thousand to as many as ten million inhabitants. While there are unique cases like Hammerhall which is actually two cities in different Realms connected by a giant portal called a Realmgate, most are just one city within a wall. Some also have underground cities of Duardin (dwarfs) below the city on the surface where Humans, Aelves, and Seraphon live. ''Soulbound'' and the Dawnbringer Crusades supplements specify that the Free Cities rule a considerable amount of land around the cities themselves, colonizing new territory and building smaller settlements along the same lines. Interestingly, getting around ''within'' each city-state is almost always much harder than traveling from one capital city to another because there aren't Realmgates linking locations within the state, only to other capitals.

* VideoGame/AgeOfWonders4: The unlockable "Chosen Destroyers" society trait locks your faction to a single city and makes it impossible to found or capture new ones.

* UsefulNotes/{{Qatar}}. 80% of the population lives in the capital city of Doha.
* UsefulNotes/{{Kuwait}} is pretty much just Kuwait City and some empty desert
* Similarly, UsefulNotes/HongKong and UsefulNotes/{{Macau}} are not exactly states, but they're self-governed enough to be considered as such; also causing multiple people to protest for their independence.