republic

Country where the head of state is not a monarch, either hereditary or elected, but usually a president, whose role may or may not include political functions.

A republic may be an aristocracy, oligarchy, or democracy. The earliest republics, those of Greece and Rome, were mainly aristocratic city-states as were the medieval republics of Venice, Florence, Genoa, and other Italian towns.

France has been a republic from 1793 to 1805, from 1848 to 1853, and from 1870 to the present time. Mexico has been a republic from 1824 to 1863, and from 1867 to the present time. Spain was a republic from 1873 to 1874, and again from 1931 to 1947, when it became theoretically a monarchy. Portugal from 1910, Poland from 1916, China from 1912, Germany from 1918, and Italy from 1945. San Marino and Andorra are the smallest republics. Germany, Switzerland, and the USA are federal republics. Several former British colonies, for example India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia, have become republics since attaining independence, while remaining within the Commonwealth, of which the Queen is the head.