Heracles’ “solitary” harbour became Europe’s pricey microstate
Monaco, a sovereign city-state on the French Riviera, is a semi-enclave edged by France on three sides and the Mediterranean on the south, with Liguria not far east. Prince Albert II heads a semi-constitutional monarchy whose late-nineteenth-century boom rode the Monte Carlo Casino and a new railway to Paris.
Its 38,423 residents share just 2.08 square kilometres, making Monaco the second-smallest sovereign state after Vatican City and the most crowded. The 3.83-kilometre shore is the shortest of any coastal nation, and fewer than 10,000 people hold Monégasque citizenship. French is official, though Italian and Monégasque are widely heard. Only French citizens pay income tax here, more than 30 percent of residents are millionaires, and flats reached €100,000 per square metre in 2018.
Hecataeus of Miletus called it Monoikos, a Ligurian town, and Strabo tied the name to a Greek epithet of Heracles meaning the solitary one, who had a temple here. Emperor Henry VI granted the site to Genoa in 1191, and a colony was refounded in 1215. In 1297 Francesco Grimaldi, nicknamed Malizia, seized the fortress disguised as a Franciscan friar, but his family needed another century to secure it. They bought the Rock from Aragon in 1419, and Honoré II began calling himself Prince in 1612.
Revolutionary France held the principality from 1793 to 1814, and the Congress of Vienna then placed it under Sardinian protection. Menton and Roquebrune, roughly 95 percent of its land, broke away and were sold to France for 4,100,000 francs, with sovereignty confirmed by the 1861 treaty. Casino money let Monaco drop income tax in 1869. A 1910 revolt produced the 1911 constitution.
Italy occupied Monaco in 1943 and Germany followed; René Blum, founder of the local ballet, died at Auschwitz. Rainier III reigned from 1949 to 2005 and wed actress Grace Kelly on 19 April 1956. Capital punishment ended and women gained the vote in 1962, Charles de Gaulle blockaded the tax haven in 1963, and Monaco joined the UN in 1993. A 2002 treaty keeps it independent even if the Grimaldi line ends, while France still handles defence.
Source: Monaco
