Commune of Monaco

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Updates: 

Jean-François Blanc forwarded me a message from IMSEE with a link to source [4]. The message, translated, says, "Under Sovereign Ordinance No. 4,481 of 2013-09-13, the territory of the Principality is divided into seven ordinanced quarters." As I explain below, this statement seems to be an oversimplification.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-3 is dated 2011-12-15. It assigns codes to seventeen quarters of Monaco.

A new area called Le Portier is under development. It will become the eleventh secteur, if completed.

FIPS PUB 10-4 is the U.S. Federal standard for administrative divisions of countries. Change 3 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated May 17, 1999. One of the changes was to drop the list of divisions for Monaco. FIPS has concluded, as I did, that the quartiers don't count as primary administrative divisions. I am disinclined to report subdivisions for a country whose total area is 2.02 km.².

Country overview: 

Short nameMONACO
ISO codeMC
FIPS codeMN
LanguageFrench (fr)
Time zone+1 ~
CapitalMonaco

 

Monaco has been independent for the entire 20th century.

Other names of country: 

  1. Danish: Monaco
  2. Dutch: Monaco, Vorstendom Monaco (formal)
  3. English: Principality of Monaco (formal)
  4. Finnish: Monaco
  5. French: Monaco, Principauté f de Monaco m (formal)
  6. German: Monaco n
  7. Icelandic: Mónakó
  8. Italian: Monaco, Principato m di Monaco m (formal)
  9. Norwegian: Monaco, Fyrstedømmet Monaco (formal)
  10. Portuguese: Mónaco, Mônaco (Brazil), Principado m do Mónaco m (formal)
  11. Russian: Княжество Монако (formal)
  12. Spanish: Mónaco, Principado m de Mónaco m (formal)
  13. Swedish: Monaco
  14. Turkish: Monako Prensliği (formal)

Origin of name: 

Italian monaco: monk; or from Greek monoikos: one house

Primary subdivisions: 

Monaco has one commune, which is coextensive with the country.

CommuneHASCPopulationArea(km.²)Area(mi.²)Capital
MonacoMC.MC31,10921Monaco

Postal codes: 

Monaco uses five-digit postal codes from the French system. They always begin with "980". Monégasque addresses can be identified by prefixing the postal codes with "MC-".

Further subdivisions:

The term "quartier" has long been used to describe various subdivisions of Monaco. Note that the French word quartier doesn't mean "one-fourth"; there is no implication of four parts. The term can be translated district, quarter, or neighborhood. Often, a quartier is an informal term with no precise boundary, but at various times, there have been well-defined quarters that have some administrative significance.

The quarters of Fontvieille, La Condamine, Monaco-Ville, and Monte-Carlo are shown in many older sources. Until 1999, the FIPS standard included codes for three quarters: La Condamine (MN01), Monaco-Ville (MN02), and Monte-Carlo (MN03). Fontvieille is probably missing from the FIPS list because it is more recent, occupying land reclaimed from the sea between 1964 and 1973.

According to the 2008 census (source [1]), the commune of Monaco was subdivided into four quartiers which were further subdivided into ten secteurs (sectors or wards). The first four columns of this table summarize the data in the census report. Note that the areas are given in square meters. It takes a million square meters to make one km.².

SectorNo.2008 quartierArea(m.²)2013 quartiers
Monte-Carlo Spélugues1Monte-Carlo295,392Monte-Carlo, La Condamine, Sainte-Dévote
La Rousse St-Roman2Monte-Carlo105,189La Rousse
Larvotto - Bas Moulins3Monte-Carlo336,796Larvotto, La Rousse, Monte-Carlo
Condamine4La Condamine267,324La Condamine
Monaco-Ville5Monaco-Ville185,466Monaco-Ville
Fontvieille6Fontvieille334,970Fontvieille, Jardin Exotique
La Colle7La Condamine175,811Jardin Exotique, Les Moneghetti
Les Révoires8La Condamine75,699Jardin Exotique, Les Moneghetti
Moneghetti - Bd de Belgique9La Condamine104,249Les Moneghetti, Jardin Exotique
Saint-Michel10Monte-Carlo142,298Monte-Carlo, Sainte-Dévote

 

The new ISO standard (2011-12) lists the following quarters. It attributes the list to the Direction des Communications Électroniques, Principauté de Monaco. No map has been provided, so the extent of this set of quarters can't be determined.

QuarterISO
FontvieilleFO
Jardin ExotiqueJE
La ColleCL
La CondamineCO
La GareGA
LarvottoLA
La SourceSO
MalbousquetMA
Monaco-VilleMO
MoneghettiMG
Monte-CarloMC
MoulinsMU
Port-HerculePH
Sainte-DévoteSD
Saint-RomanSR
SpéluguesSP
Vallon de la RousseVR

 

In 2013, a new ordinance (source [3]) provides for eight quarters and one more division. They are matched up with the 2008 census sectors in the table above.

Territorial extent: 

Monaco borders only one other country: France. It escapes being an enclave only because of its seacoast.

The UN LOCODE page  for Monaco lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Change history: 

  1. 1911-01-05: Under Monaco's first constitution, the country consisted of the communes of La Condamine, Monaco-Ville, and Monte-Carlo.
  2. 1917-11-18: Monaco commune formed by merging the three communes.
  3. ~1973: Fontvieille quartier formed on land reclaimed from the sea. It comprises just one secteur, also called Fontvieille.
  4. 2013-09-13: Sovereign ordinance 4,481 established a division into eight quartiers and one unorganized area. That is my interpretation of the confusing language of the ordinance.

Population history:

CensusPopulation
190315,543
190819,121
191815,960
192824,927
193823,956
195120,202
196221,783
197525,029
198227,463
199029,972
200032,020
200831,109

Sources: 

  1. [1] 2008 census report  (retrieved 2009-09-29 from http://www.gouv.mc/devwww/wwwnew.nsf/1909$/dfb8c2ae4774e8d9c12575ac0046c0e5fr?OpenDocument&Count=10000&InfoChap=Dossiers%20&InfoSujet=Recensement%202008&6Fr, now a dead link).
  2. [2] Government of Monaco  website (retrieved 2005-01-28).
  3. [3] Journal de Monaco  (official bulletin): Sovereign ordinance 4,481. (retrieved 2013-11-25).
  4. [4] Focus : Surfaces construites . IMSEE (Institut Monégasque de la Statistique et des Études Économiques) (retrieved 2013-11-25, has a map of the quartiers mentioned in ordinance 4,481).

Here is my translation of the relevant parts of source [3]. "The territory of the Principality is divided into three sectors: (A) the reserved sector, which must be preserved in its current character ...; (B) the sector of ordinanced quarters, ... with an urban character; (C) the sector of urbanized operations, which consists of a medium-model zone, a high-model zone, and a border zone." The contents of sectors (A) and (B) are itemized. (A) contains "Monaco-Ville quarter and the ravine of Sainte-Dévote." The prince's palace is in Monaco-Ville, so that quarter is probably treated as a historic preservation area. (B) contains the quarters of la Condamine, Fontvieille, Jardin Exotique, Larvotto, Moneghetti, Monte-Carlo, and La Rousse. The map at source [4] shows Monaco completely partitioned into those eight quarters and the ravine. The ravine may not have any buildings in it; on the satellite view, it looks like park land. In sector (C), the word I translated as "model" is "gabarit," which is a rather vague term. It can mean a mold, a model, a template, a pattern, a jig, or a dimension. From another source, I find that the percentage of green space required in new construction is different for each of the three zones mentioned in (C).

It looks to me as if the sectors represent different forms of administration and not a partition of the territory. The partition would be the eight quarters and the ravine.

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