Urban secession

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Urban secession is a city's secession from its surrounding region, to form a new political unit. This new unit is usually a subdivision of the same country as its surroundings, but in some cases, full sovereignty may be attained, in which case the unit is usually called a city-state. It is an extreme form of urban autonomy, which can be expressed in less formal terms or with ordinary legislation such as a City Charter.

Urban secession movements theories of why a city should be at least partially independent of surrounding regions goes back to Classical Rome, 17th-century London, 18th-century Amsterdam and other centers of commercial activity. Comparisons focused on the modern nation-state and its relationships to the more traditional feudal city-state government.[clarify][citation needed]


Urban autonomy has a long history back to the prehistoric urbanization and the original Mediterranean city-states of classical times, e.g. Ancient Athens, Ancient Rome. In medieval times such measures as the Magdeburg rights established special status for cities and their residents in commercial relations. In general it receded as European cities were incorporated into nation-states especially in the 17th century to 20th century, eventually losing many special rights.

Theory of urban secession[edit]






An example of formally seceded urban region with full sovereignty is Singapore (from Malaysia). Monaco and Vatican City are also financially and politically independent urban areas, though the reasons for these two are historical and unrelated to any principle of urban secession.


In China, both Beijing and Tianjin are independent of the surrounding province of Hebei, of which they were formerly a part. Similarly, Shanghai is now independent from Jiangsu and Chongqing from Sichuan. Hong Kong and Macao have the statute of special autonomous region, separated from their original province Guangdong. The People's Republic of China regards Taiwan as its 23rd province, with Taipei as its capital. However, in practice, the non-recognized Republic of China administers six cities, formerly part of the Republic of China's Taiwan Province, as special municipalities: Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei and Taoyuan. The People's Republic of China continues to recognize these territories as an integral part of Taiwan Province.

In both South Korea and North Korea, special cities are independent from their surrounding provinces and city-states under direct governance from the central government. Examples are Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon and Ulsan in South Korea and Pyongyang and Rason in North Korea. In South Korea, the main criterion for granting secession from the province is population reaching one million.

In Japan, Tokyo, while typically thought of a city, is its own prefecture, falling into a special category of "metropolitan prefecture" having some of properties of a city and some of a prefecture. Within Tokyo, there are smaller units, "wards", "cities", "towns", etc, but some of the responsibilities normally assigned to cities and towns in other Japanese prefectures are handled by the Tokyo metropolitan government instead.[1] [2] [3]


In Germany there are two cities — Berlin and Hamburg — that are Bundesländer in themselves (thus, they are city-states within a federal system). The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is a city-state comprising two cities (Bremen, Bremerhaven). The city of Vienna is a federal state within the Republic of Austria. The Brussels capital region, a densely built-up area consisting of 19 communes including the capital city Brussels, became one of Belgium's three regions after the country was turned into a federation in 1970. London governs itself under the Greater London Authority. Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the biggest cities in Russia, have Federal city status. In Bulgaria the capital Sofia is an oblast of its own - Sofia-grad, while the surrounding area is divided between the Pernik Oblast and the Sofia Oblast.

In the United Kingdom, London secessionism has gathered momentum following the Brexit referendum, during which the UK as a whole voted to leave the European Union, but London voted to remain in the EU.

North America[edit]

There are no city-states in North America. Some[who?] would apply that classification to the District of Columbia in the United States or Distrito Federal in Mexico, but these are federal government districts and not ordinary municipalities. As such, they are subject to the direct authority, respectively, of the U.S. and Mexican federal governments. The residents of Washington, D.C. did not elect their own mayor and city council until 1972, when the United States Congress extended home rule to the city. However, the actions of the mayor and city council must still be approved, at least retroactively, by the Congress, and no legislation passed by the Government of the District of Columbia can take effect until and unless the U.S. Congress approves it.


Urban secession is one of many possible solutions pondered by some Canadian cities as they contemplate their problems. It is one that is considered politically useful because of the strong secessionist movement in Quebec, as well as the weaker secessionist movements in Newfoundland (formerly independent), Alberta and British Columbia.

In Quebec, with a secessionist movement and linguistic dichotomy, the division of a newly independent Quebec has been a strong undercurrent, with some having a Province of Montreal remaining in Canada, sometimes containing only the West Island and the West Shore of Montreal.

For many decades, the urban communities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have been configured separately from their respective provinces, for purposes of apportioning Members of Parliament after the national censuses conducted every five years.[citation needed]

United States[edit]

Various proposals have been made for New York City to secede from New York State. On a lower level, some states permit or have permitted a city to secede from its county and become a county-equivalent jurisdiction in its own right. Whether the new county-equivalent jurisdiction is considered to be a consolidated city-county like San Francisco, California or an independent city like St. Louis, Missouri is a matter for each such state to decide.

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