Free state is a term occasionally used in the official titles of some states.
In principle the title asserts and emphasises the freedom of the state in question, but what this actually means varies greatly in different contexts:
Sometimes it asserts sovereignty or independence (and with that, lack of foreign domination).
Sometimes it asserts autonomy within a larger nation-state.
Sometimes it is used as a synonym for republic but not all "free states" have been republics. While the historical German free states and the Orange Free State were republican in form, the Congo and Irish Free States were governed under forms of monarchy.
In Germany the term free state (in German, Freistaat) comes from the 19th century as a German word for republic. After the German Revolution of November 1918, when Imperial Germany became the Weimar Republic, most of the German states within the German Reich called themselves a Free State. Others used expressions like Republik or Volksstaat (people's state). After 1952 only Bavaria still called itself a Free State, that made Free State a synonym of Bavaria. In 1990 the reestablished Saxony used the name again, and since 1993 Thuringia for the first time.
Historically Germany had Imperial Free Cities, who were subject only to the Emperor. In 1871 Germany knew only three Free Cities, Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck; the latter lost its status in 1937. Since 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany has Hamburg (Freie und Hansestadt, Free and Hanseatic City) and Bremen (Freie Hansestadt), and also Berlin as a city which is also a Land (state). Like the Free States these three cities have no special rights in the federation.
In South Africa the term free state was used in the title of the nineteenth century Orange Free State (Oranje Vrystaat in Afrikaans) and is today used in the title of its successor, Free State province; both entities were established as republican in form.
In contrast, the Congo Free State came into being between 1877 and 1884 as a private kingdom or dictatorship of King Léopold II of Belgium. In this case, the term free emphasised the new state's freedom from major colonial powers and the Belgian parliament, as the colony was ruled only by the king.
The Irish Free State of 1922-1937 was a form of constitutional monarchy under the British monarch. The Irish state was a special case because the term free state was deliberately chosen as a literal translation of the Irish word saorstát. At the time in which Irish nationalists were negotiating the secession of most of Ireland from the United Kingdom the word saorstát was a commonly used Irish word for republic. The British did not wish to permit the creation of an Irish republic (which would mean severing all links with the British crown) and so insisted that the literal translation of saorstát be used in the new state's English title instead.
Puerto Rico
Flag of the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico ("Associated Free State of Puerto Rico")
The official Spanish name of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, literally, "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico", expressing a "politically organized community? or ?State,? which is simultaneously connected by a compact to a larger political system and hence does not have an independent and separate status. However, according to the United States Supreme Court, Puerto Rico is not free, nor associated and only a state in the general sense, not as a state of the Union in the U.S. constitutional sense. According to consistent U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence, Puerto Rico belongs to, but is not an integral part of, the United States. Moreover, said jurisprudence has determined that regardless of what nominal or cosmetic veneer has moted Puerto Rico's political status, it is essentially a U.S. colonial territory, since it is under the plenary powers of the U.S. Congress. At its most basic, this Supreme Court doctrine expresses that Puerto Rico is more like property, far from a free-governing community or nation, and thus "domestic in a foreign sense" (not for the taking or meddling by free-foreign nations), but "foreign in a domestic sense" (i.e., not a partner or equal.) In the Insular Cases, the Court ruled that the United States Constitution does not automatically apply in Puerto Rico.
Republican England
English Parliament, in the act forming the Commonwealth of England of 1649 to 1660, declared that "England is confirmed to be a Commonwealth and Free State and shall from henceforth be Governed as a Commonwealth and Free State." The Commonwealth had a republican constitution.
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