Monaco

Monaco is a sovereign city-state of 2.08 square kilometres on the French Riviera, bordered by France on three sides and by the Mediterranean on the fourth – after the Vatican, the second-smallest country in the world. The House of Grimaldi has ruled it, with brief interruptions, since 8 January 1297, when François Grimaldi, disguised as a Franciscan friar, talked his way into the fortress on the Rock and opened the gates to his men. The two sword-carrying monks on Monaco's coat of arms still tell the story. French is the official language, and the Franco-Monégasque Treaty of 1861 settled the principality's sovereignty.

Modern Monaco was invented in the 1860s. In 1856 Charles III granted a concession for sea bathing and a casino; in 1866 the bare Spélugues plateau across the harbour was renamed Monte-Carlo, Mount Charles; and in 1868 the railway arrived. The Casino and the Salle Garnier of 1878–79, by Charles Garnier and Jules Dutrou, set the Belle Époque register – turrets, balconies, pinnacles, coloured ceramics and caryatids – that still defines Monte-Carlo.

The twentieth century added height and land. Larvotto was laid out on the shore in the 1960s; Fontvieille was won from the sea between 1966 and 1973 to a plan by the architect Manfredi Nicoletti; and Mareterra, six hectares of new land between Port Hercule and the Grimaldi Forum, was inaugurated on 4 December 2024. The towers of the 1960s to the 1980s – Le Millefiori, L'Annonciade, Parc Saint Roman – were overtaken in 2015 by Alexandre Giraldi's 170-metre Tour Odéon, the tallest building in the principality.