State
Some early states were based on cities.  Some Ancient Greek city-states had democracy in a limited form.  Other states had inheritance of kingship or even challenges and fighting to decide leadership.  Early city states had a feature that modern society cannot match.  Every man got to see and know the leading citizens.  "Man" because most city-states limited the vote to male heads of families. One reason was that the adult men would do the fighting if the group were attacked.