Independent City

An independent city or independent town is a city or town that does not form part of another general-purpose local government entity (such as a province).

Historical precursors

In the Holy Roman Empire, and to a degree in its successor states the German Confederation and the German Empire, so-called " free imperial cities" (nominative singular ''freie Reichsstadt'', nominative plural ''freie Reichsstädte'') held the legal status of imperial immediacy, according to which they were not subinfeudated to any vassal ruler and were instead subject to the authority of the Emperor alone. Examples included Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, along with others that gained and/or lost the privileges of immediacy over the course of the Empire's history.

National capitals

A number of countries have made their national capitals into separate entities.

Federal capitals

In countries with a federal structure, the federal capital is often separate from other jurisdictions in the country, and frequently has a unique system of government.

Africa

Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, has held the designation of chartered city since 1991, when it was separated from the former province of Shewa. It shares this status with one other city, Dire Dawa.

Mali

Bamako, the capital of Mali, is contained within the Bamako Capital District.

Mozambique

Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, is its own district with provincial status surrounded by the Province of Maputo.

Niger

Niger's capital, Niamey, comprises a capital district of Niger. It is surrounded by the Tillabéri Department.

Nigeria

Nigeria's capital Abuja is located in the Federal Capital Territory. The Territory was established in 1976, and the capital was formally moved from Lagos (the historic capital) in 1991.

Asia

Republic of China (Taiwan)

In Taiwan Area under the administrative division system of the Republic of China, some cities are directly administered by the Executive Yuan, some are administered by provinces (the province of Taiwan is nominal), and some are subordinate to counties. The centrally-administered (Taipei City, Kaohsiung City, New Taipei City, Taichung City, Tainan City, and Taoyuan City) and province-administered ones are like independent cities under this definition.

South Korea

In addition to its nine provinces, South Korea has seven province-level "metropolitan cities." By far the largest among these in terms of population is the capital, Seoul, called a ''teukbyeol-si'' (특별시; literally, special city), which is home to more than 20% of the entire population of the country. The remaining six independent cities are called ''gwangyeok-si'' (광역시; literally, large city) whose names are: Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Incheon, Gwangju, and Ulsan.

Historically, these independent cities have been carved from the province that surrounds them. Consequently, they typically share a strong regional and cultural identity with the adjoining province(s). For instance, Gwangju, located at the center of Jeolla region, is heavily associated with the region. Seoul and Incheon are said to make up the National Capital Area along with the densely populated Gyeonggi that almost completely encompasses them.

One interesting relic of the newer independent cities is that, in some cases, the government administrative buildings (''docheong'') of the provinces they were once a part of are still located within city boundaries, meaning that these provinces have capitals that are not within their borders.

On 1 July 2012, Yeongi-gun, Chungcheongnam-do absorbed parts of Cheonan, Gongju and Cheongju, and became independent from Chungcheongnam-do as Sejong Special Self-governing City under the Special Act on the Installation of Sejong City. Currently, the population of Sejong Special Self-governing City is lower than that of the aforementioned metropolitan cities, but the population is increasing with the construction of a mixed-use administrative city. In 2006, the ruling party floated a proposal to eliminate all current province and independent-city borders. This plan would divide the entire republic into fifty or sixty city- or county-level adm