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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 143372" data-attributes="member: 891">A city state would probably be best described as a small kingdom with an urban focus.Which would make it stand out in a pre industrial society.We still have a few of them today in Europe.Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and Monaco I think. The vatican might qualify under some definitions but I'd say no as it's inside another nations city and lacks the immediate resources to be self sustaining (I think... I don't think it owns any sizable farmland inside it's territory within Rome itself.)These are 'nations' which consist of one major population center surrounded by a few satellite populations which support it with vital resources.In many classic cases the population was such that in the case of war the entire nation could hide within the city walls. I believe at least Athens followed that model.In modern times the satellites are likely almost small cities themselves. I'd have to research the above examples to be sure.In a preindustrial civilization to survive under agrarian terms (argriculture) you need to have a village nearly every 1-5 miles. Or rather; a days walk. Anyone more isolated than that will likely not survive long or if they gain enough population will likely become independant of your power structure.In such a civilization you need to have dense populations. The middle ages averaged a good 80 to 90 for most of Europe. With a few oddballs like England at 42 (though actually higher because most of those people where clustered in a few key parts of the territorry they claimed to control) or France at 105.That's on a wheat economy. The figures are vastly lower for a maize economy and vastly higher for a rice economy.So while you're city state might be a city and a couple of villages and towns around it; it might still be no more than 10 to 20 miles across in size for the entire 'nation'. In that space you could fit (assuming 20x20 miles) 34,000 people assuming average medival population. For a city state put a normally absurd number of them in the city, say 40-50% (usually in the middle ages the urban population is only 1 to 8%, but a city state has an inverted focus; it only has enough rural people to support the food needs of the city).</blockquote>

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