Free city

1727, Nathaniel Lardner, Credibility of the Gospel History, 1815, The Works of Nathaniel Lardner, D.D., Volume 1, Thomas Hamilton, page 124, Pliny calls ᵉ Tarsus a free city: which is an incontestable proof it was not a Roman colony, for then he would have called it so.

1835, Free Cities, article in Francis Lieber, Edward Wigglesworth, T. G. Bradford (editors), Encyclopædia Americana, Volume 5, New Edition, page 311, The remnants of this league, with the former confederacy of cities, which had its representatives in the German diet, and the free cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck, were incorporated with the French empire in 1810. As these cities coöperated vigorously in the recovery of German independence, they were acknowledged, together with Frankfort, as free cities, by the congress of Vienna. […] Besides these four free cities in Germany, Cracow (q. v.) was likewise declared a free city by the general act of the congress of Vienna, and is under the protection of Russia, Austria and Prussia.

The High Commissioner of the Free City of Danzig was a position established under the Peace Treaty of Versailles that concluded World War I.