Phoenicia was a collection of loosely allied city states, and not a proper nation. The main cities were Aradus, Byblos, Sidon and Tyre.

They generally managed to maintain good relations with the Cartagian Empire because as Carthage was a Phoenician colony, the Carthagians and Phoenicians regarded each other as brothers. The colonies founded by the Phoenician and Greek city states were usually politically autonomous from the very start as opposed to the colonies formed by the European powers in the Americas in the 16th-18th centuries.