Places

• Imperial City, Beijing, the central section of Beijing
• Imperial City (Huế), a walled fortress and palace in the former capital of Vietnam.
• Free imperial city
  Free Imperial City
  In the Holy Roman Empire, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishops...
  
  , city formally responsible only to the emperor in the Holy Roman Empire,.
• Cusco
  Cusco
  Cusco , often spelled Cuzco , is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region as well as the Cuzco Province. In 2007, the city had a population of 358,935 which was triple the figure of 20 years ago...
  
  , an ancient Inca city in Peru often cited as The Imperial City

Fictional

• Coruscant
  Coruscant
  Coruscant is a planet in the fictional Star Wars universe. It first appeared onscreen in the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, but was first mentioned in Timothy Zahn's 1991 novel Heir to the Empire...
  
   (during the reign of the Galactic Empire), a fictional planet in the center of the Star Wars galaxy
• Imperial City, Cyrodiil, the fictional capital of the Empire of Tamriel featured in the Elder Scrolls
  The Elder Scrolls
  The Elder Scrolls is a role-playing video game series developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.-History:...
  
   role-playing game series

Other

It can also be a generic term for a major city that dominates the economic activities of a large region and which also builds impressive public and private structures and cultural institutions, even if it possesses a democratic

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 government within the framework of a larger republic

Republic

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...

(for example, as described in the book Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin by Gray Brechin).