Kinney is a city in Saint Louis County, Minnesota, United States.

The land was originally occupied by Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi.

By 1977, the City of Kinney, with a population of 325 according to the 1970 census, suffered from a failing water system, and was faced with a replacement cost of $186,000.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts to secure funding from state and federal agencies due to bureaucratic red tape, agencies such as the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Commission (IRRRC), the city council was led to believe that it would be easier to receive foreign aid if Kinney seceded from the union,[7] declared war, and lost immediately.

Mayor Mary Anderson and a supportive Kinney City Council sent a secession letter to U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on July 13, 1977.

[9] Jeno Paulucci, a businessman based in Duluth, Minnesota, was the first to acknowledge the new republic and offer 'foreign aid' in the form of a dark brown 1974 Ford LTD police squad car and 10 cases of Jenos Sausage Pizza Mix on February 13, 1978.

[10] In November 1978, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) approved $198,000 grant, allocated in three payments of $66,000 per year from the Taconite Area Environmental Protection Fund, to repair the existing water system, construct cement runoff basins, and install additional fire hydrants.

Later the republic created buttons and sold T-shirts, and had a summer festival called 'Secession Days', which was first held during the weekend of August 1–2, 1987.

The city celebrated the 30th anniversary of its "independence" as the Republic of Kinney during the weekend of July 13–15, 2007.

25.3% were of Finnish, 19.2% German, 8.9% Irish, 8.2% Norwegian, 6.8% Swedish, 6.2% French Canadian and 6.2% Italian ancestry.