Depending on how you define "city states", it might just be Singapore and a couple of petrostates. Slightly broader definitions give you Malta (average Mediterr

Depending on how you define "city states", it might just be Singapore and a couple of petrostates. Slightly broader definitions give you Malta (average Mediterranean country) as discussed and some middle income Caribbean islands relying on tourists and tax avoiders. That isn't because being a city state is so amazing every city just wished it could shed its hinterland, it's because operating as an independent country with limited domestic food production capacity is hard (even without neighbours wanting to assimilate you) Sure, cities have higher per capita GDP than their associated agricultural regions, but Singapore's GDP in 1963 was low relative to the agricultural regions of many countries it's since overtaken, its institutions were the colonial power's and much of its population consisted of uneducated coolies performing manual labour and living in squalid conditions. And it initially chose not to be a city state! The only thing inevitable about Singapore's growth path is that if its first government had bankrupted the country and begged to be British or Malaysian subjects again by 1970, people would have said this wasn't at all surprising given its Asian culture (not so highly rated for business acumen in the 1960s!) and geographical disadvantages...