[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/{{Tropico}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Tropico3.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:And you said a country can't have one city...]]
When a country is a city-state, i.e. the city is the country, or the other way around: the country has only one city.

Although this can be justified by the country being small (e.g. Monaco, Vatican City, Singapore), it is NOT justified when a country of this size has an economy the size of the US economy. This is a perfect opportunity to mix this trope with a hearty helping of CityOfAdventure. In {{Anime}} a city like this is usually a {{Utopia}} or {{Dystopia}}.

Note that the area with one city DOES NOT have to be a country, it can be a [[{{Planetville}} planet]] or county or etc...

Compare BritainIsOnlyLondon when an entire Real-Life country is reduced into consisting of nothing more than its most popular city.
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!!Examples:

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[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* In ''{{Appleseed}}'', Olympus, the most powerful country, apparently has only one city.
* Almost all (or maybe all) the "countries" in ''[[KinosJourney Kino no Tabi]]'' are like this.
** Even if there are a few that aren't, Kino never stays long enough to find out.
* At the end of ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' (or the first season of ''{{Robotech}}''), humans have been nearly wiped out by the Zentradi, and have only one city left. Nonetheless, they still field a very powerful military.
* Academy City in ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex''. While located inside Japan, it is its own nation, one of the most powerful influences in the world, and can even declare war.

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[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* The various [[MegaCity Mega-Cities]] in ''JudgeDredd'' each only have direct authority over their respective urban areas, though MC-1 at least does have some influence over parts of the Cursed Earth.
* Attilan, home of TheInhumans.
* Also from Marvel, Madripoor - which, conveniently enough, is next-door to Singapore.
* From Wildstorm (recently transplanted into the DCU) is the small island nation of Gamorra, which is the home base of Kaizen Gamorra.

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[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/TheMatrix'' had Zion, the last human city.
* ''StarWars'': Coruscant is a city the size of an entire ''planet''.
** Its presumed to have had multiple cities at some point in the distant past. Now, like with New York City and London, several once-separate municipalities have been devoured by the more dominant one and turned into boroughs, albeit on a slightly larger scale than either of those.
* In the live action Film/SuperMarioBros movie, the parallel world where Koopas reside had only one city, surrounded by endless tracts of desert.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* A few locations in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' are city-states. Most notably Ankh-Morpork and Genua.
* Trantor from the {{Foundation}} universe is a planet whose entire surface has been urbanized, thus making it one big city.
* Tar Valon from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''; also, the (less-important) city-states of Mayene and Far Madding.
* Grantville in ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' is effectively this. Interestingly there were a number of independent cities like that at the time. Unfortunately they didn't possess repeating rifles.
* PerdidoStreetStation and IronCouncil feature New Crobuzon, which in the latter book is at war with the city-state of Tesh. TheScar also features a city-state made of pirate ships stuck together.
* The crumbling city of Mervyn Peake's {{Gormenghast}} appears to be the only city in the world. In fact, it seems to ''be'' the world.
* The Queens in ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'' rule only over the Castle.
* The entire ''Marîd Audran'' mystery/crime series takes place in one moderately sized Middle Eastern city based on New Orleans. Hell most of the stories set in the city is set in one neighborhood, the Budayeen (think an Arabic {{red light district}})
* Melniboné is one of these, by the time the events of TheElricSaga begin. It used to be the capital of a vast conquered empire but now it's just an insular little city-state in the middle of the sea.

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[[folder: Real Life ]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Monaco}} and UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}} are RealLife examples, while [[UsefulNotes/VaticanCity the Vatican]] takes it UpToEleven by being an enclave ''within'' the city of Rome. That makes this trope TruthInTelevision.
* Similarly, UsefulNotes/HongKong and UsefulNotes/{{Macau}} are not exactly states, but they're self-governed enough to be considered as such.
* TruthInTelevision historically. Ancient Greek city-states were just that, cities that controlled relatively small amounts of the surrounding land. Similar conditions prevailed during large parts of Medieval Italy, co-existing with larger realms like the Papal States or the kingdom of Sicily.
** The Italian city-states, despite their name, actually subvert this. Most were the size of small countries, incorporating numerous surrounding settlements and townships. They were only city-states to the extent that power was concentrated in the hands of the eponymous cities, such as Florence and Venice.
** Actually, ancient Greek ''poléis'' had other towns in their territory. They were called ''démoi''. The important thing in a Greek city-state was not the city, but its citizens. A citizen of Athens could live outside Athens, in a small village at the other side of the Attic region, but he was still Athenian.
* Also many of the smaller states that made up the HolyRomanEmpire.
** 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 {{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).

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[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* ''MagicTheGathering'' has Ravnica, a plane with only one city. That said, that one city is large enough to occupy the entire plane.
* [[{{Exalted}} Lookshy]], a relatively small city state, is capable of fielding military forces comparable to [[TheEmpire the Realm]] (which on its own is an island the size of the continental United States and recieves tribute from across the world), through a combination of an extremely militant society and huge stockpiles of artifact weaponry. Lookshy is comparably disadvantaged in that it doesn't have nearly the same power projection as the Realm (they can protect themselves and their neighbours, but are unable to be as expansive).
** Nexus has economic power comparable to the Realm, partially because it is at the heart of the [[ScavengerWorld Scavenger Lands]] (and benefits from some protection by Lookshy) and partially because it serves as the headquarters of a powerful, worldwide mercantile guild. [[MysteriousProtector The Emmissary]] is also important in maintaining the autonomy and power of the city.
* The ''DarkSun'' setting for DungeonsAndDragons has several city-states, each of which controls one of the few remaining fair-sized spots of fertile land and not much else ([[SpaceWhaleAesop centuries of sorcerous warfare and use of magical WMDs millenia past]] [[GreenAesop reduced most of the world to desert]], natch).

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* As revealed in ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry Donkey Kong Land]]'', Donkey Kong Island has one city: Big Ape City.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has Lindblum and Burmecia, which control a goodly portion of the continent with only one city. Also, narrowly averted in that Alexandria has a whopping three cities (or two, it's [[EpilepticTrees ambiguous]] where Treno stands)
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'''s nations of [[TheKingdom San d'Oria]], [[TheRepublic Bastok]], [[TheFederation Windurst]], and [[HubCity Jeuno]] are all technically city-states in the present time, although the first three have historical areas that they controlled in the past that are now up for grabs. [[TheEmpire Aht Urhgan]] is seemingly the only in-game nation with actual vast stretches of territory.
* The [[RetCon now-destroyed]] Zendar from ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 3'' has only one city to build on, and you CAN STILL have a thriving economy.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Although it's not very clear in the game itself at first glance, according to lore [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft Stormwind]] is actually a city-state, and the adjacent regions are independent governments that just allow Stormwind to protect them with its military.
* ''Franchise/{{Bioshock}}'': Rapture isn't especially large compared to most real-world cities, but it's definitely self-contained, self-sufficient, and a sovereign nation as far as anyone's concerned.
* [[FourX 4X games]] typically start with every empire consisting of only single city. Though establishing or conquering additional cities is usually the first thing the players do.
** VideoGame/{{Civilization}} series veterans have popularized a variant called the One City Challenge in which the player restricts himself or herself to a single city at all times, thus radically changing the gameplay and the methods or mindset needed to secure a victory.
*** Also from ''Civilization'', ''Civilization V'' introduced "city-states", which despite the name typically control a substantial amount of surrounding territory. Realistically, they're more like small-to-midsize countries than what we usually think of as city-states, as evidenced by the fact that many of them take the names of real-life cities from countries that have only one large, well-known city (e.g. Stockholm, Seoul, Dublin) or only a small handful of them (e.g. Warsaw, Sydney, Quebec City, and Hanoi).
* What are commonly called One Province Minors([=OPMs=]) in games designed by ''ParadoxInteractive'' are these, states with only one province, and thus, in game terms, only one city.
* ''{{Thief}}'''s [[CityWithNoName The City]].

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[[folder: Web Original ]]

* The eponymous village of ''TheQuestportChronicles''.
* ''MetamorKeep'' consists of the titular keep and a few outlying villages. By the time of ''MetamorCity'' the keep has developed into an arcology covering most of its original territory and is the capital of an empire spanning most of the continent.

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': The north and south poles are inhabited by the Water Tribes. The Northern tribe have one huge city, while the Southern tribe are reduced to a measly village after being invaded and almost completely killed by the Fire Nation.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Phantom 2040}}'': Following the Resource Wars, the United States no longer exists as an entity but as a bunch of independently-ruled city-states.
* ''WesternAnimation/SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperforceGo'' gives us a ''Planet'' of one City; Shuggazoom City is the only one on the planet of the same name, with the rest of the planet being a vast wasteland.
* Spoofed in the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "E. Peterbus Unum" when Peter turns his house into the nation of Petoria.
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