Free Port, name given to a port at which ships of all nations may discharge or load cargo without payment of customs or other duties, save harbour dues. They were created in various Continental countries during the Middle Ages for the purpose of stimulating trade, but Copenhagen and, in a restricted sense, Hamburg and Bremen are now the only free ports in Europe. The system of bonded warehousing has superseded them.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Free Cities of Germany * Free Soilers