Monaco: Where size matters

Monaco is a sovereign city-state, located in Western Europe. France borders it on 3 sides and the Mediterranean Sea on the other. It has a very small area of only just over 2km². The state is best known for having very low taxes and a glamorous royal family.

Monaco is the second most densely populated place in the world; this has led to the state coming to the extreme solution of extending into the sea. It has turned to this rather unusual way of expansion, as there are few other options for the tiny state. As it is surrounded entirely by France, the solution to this space problem does not lie on land. Currently, Monaco is so densely populated that there is no way of adding more buildings to the existing space.

In the past, Monaco has successfully reclaimed land from the sea. This was done in the 1970’s when the district of Fontvielle was built entirely on reclaimed land, it added to Monaco’s land area by 20%. This was controversial at the time as the coastline of Monaco is rich with wildlife, which was disturbed by this development.

Monaco now intends to extend into the sea even further which is likely to cause more controversy.  The new area will be completed by 2024 and is a very large-scale project for Monaco. The total area reclaimed will be the size of 6 hectares. The project will cost £842 million. The project was initially attempted in 2008 but the economic conditions at the time meant that it had to be abandoned.

Although Monaco has agreed to strictly follow environmental regulations, there are still doubts about the situation. By building reclaiming a large area from the sea, the habitats of many forms of wildlife will be destroyed.  The Mediterranean Sea is home to many varied species of wildlife ranging from crustaceans to jellyfish. Although this is considered to be a major problem, the economic benefits outweigh the environmental loss.

The new development will have some exciting elements. These include an underwater car park.  Many more marina docking places will also be added. These are used by many of Monaco’s wealthy residents and are a major tourist attraction.

If this project is successful, it could become as famous as Dubai’s palm islands. Other land reclamation projects include a sixth of the Netherlands, Tokyo Bay in Japan and reclaimed swampland in Dunedin, New Zealand. Just imagine if a significant amount of land was added to Britain, how would you use the space?