Districts of Mauritius

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Updates: 

Mauritius will go on daylight saving time by advancing its clocks one hour from 2008-10-06 to 2009-03-27. (These dates represent a change from the original announcement.)

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-4, was released on 2002-12-10. In "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", I reported that ISO 3166-2 (at that time in draft form) showed Mauritius divided into five cities, nine districts, and three dependencies. In my opinion, the five cities were not really first-level subdivisions, but were parts of two of the districts. The standard listed Port Louis city and Port Louis district, both with the code MU-PL. I didn't point out the ambiguity of the code, because I wasn't treating Port Louis city as a subdivision. In this newsletter, ISO has apparently recognized the code conflict, and changed the code for Port Louis city to MU-PU.

Paraskevas Renesis reports that the status of Rodrigues Island was changed from dependency to island region. The Constitution of Mauritius (Amendment) Bill and the Rodrigues Regional Assembly Bill were both passed on 2001-11-20. As a result, Rodrigues will have two representatives in the Parliament of Mauritius, and will also have its own regional assembly.

The Central Statistics Office  of Mauritius has released the results of the population census taken in July, 2000. The table below shows the resident population by district.

Country overview: 

Although Mauritius was a British colony from 1814 until it gained independence on 1968-03-12, its place names retain a strong flavor of older times when it was the French colony of Île de France.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Mauritius
2. Dutch: Mauritius, Republiek Mauritius (formal)
3. English: Republic of Mauritius (formal)
4. Finnish: Mauritius
5. French: Maurice f
6. German: Mauritius n
7. Icelandic: Máritíus
8. Italian: Maurizio
9. Norwegian: Mauritius, Republikken Mauritius (formal)
10. Portuguese: Maurício m, Maurícia, Maurícias fp, Ilha f Maurício (Portugal), República f do Maurício (formal)
11. Spanish: Mauricio m
12. Swedish: Mauritius

Origin of name: 

named by early explorers after Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625)

Primary subdivisions: 

Mauritius is divided into nine districts, two dependencies, and one region.

Here are maps showing the wards  on Mauritius Island and the zones  on Rodrigues Island.

Further subdivisions:

In addition to the divisions listed above, ISO 3166-2 lists the following five cities. The FIPS standard also listed them, calling them "urban councils", until 1991. They are all located within Plaines Wilhems district, except Port Louis, which is in Port Louis district.

Territorial extent: 

1. The districts (as opposed to the dependencies and region) are all mainly located on Mauritius Island.
2. Agalega Islands is an island group north of Mauritius.
3. Black River includes Île aux Bénitiers (Île Morne).
4. Cargados Carajos consists of a set of islets north of Mauritius, called the Cargados Carajos Shoals (Saint Brandon Rocks).
5. Flacq includes Île aux Cerfs.
6. Rivière du Rempart includes Flat Island, Gabriel Island, Gunner's Quoin, Île d'Ambre, and Round Island.
7. Rodrigues is an island east of Mauritius, with a few adjacent islets and shoals.

Origins of names: 

Pamplemousses: French for grapefruit (plural)

Change history: 

1. 1965-11-08: Chagos Archipelago dependency split from Mauritius to form British Indian Ocean Territory.
2. In 1970, Mauritius consisted of three district councils, five urban councils, and three dependencies. The district councils (and their capitals) were Moka-Flacq (Quartier Militaire), North (Mapou), and South (Rose Belle). The urban councils were Beau Bassin-Rose Hill, Curepipe, Port Louis, Quatre Bornes, and Vacoas-Phoenix. The dependencies were Agalega Islands, Cargados Carajos Shoals, and Rodrigues Island. The urban councils are the same as the cities mentioned under "Further subdivisions". Source: Geographic Report No. 16, issued by the office of the Geographer, Department of State, 1971-10-27.
3. ~1976: Moka-Flacq district council (capital Quartier Militaire, FIPS code MP05) split into Flacq and Moka districts. North district council (capital Triolet, FIPS code MP06) split into Pamplemousses and Rivière du Rempart districts. South district council (capital Rose Belle, FIPS code MP10) split into Black River, Grand Port, Plaines Wilhems, and Savanne districts. The five urban councils were apparently absorbed into their respective districts.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Cargados Carajos: Saint-Brandon (variant)
2. Rodrigues: Rodriguez (obsolete)