A city-state is a sovereign state that consists of a city and its dependent territories. Historically, this included famous cities like Rome, Athens, Carthage, and the Italian city-states during the Renaissance—but today only a handful of sovereign city-states exist, with some disagreement as to which are city-states. However, a great deal of consensus exists that the term properly applies to Singapore, Monaco, and Vatican City (although the last of these consists only of part of a city). In particular, Singapore has been referred to by The Economist as the "world's only fully-functioning city-state".