In Monaco, 2.08 km² for 39,000 inhabitants. The response from the Principality to this constraint has never changed: building upwards, increasing density inwards, leaving no single plot without a development plan. Two examples of projects underway in the neighbourhood of Larvotto Saint-Romain, illustrate this logic better than any other speech.
2.08 square kilometres. That is the total area of Monaco since the opening of Mareterra in December 2024, six hectares reclaimed from the sea after years of construction work. Before that, the territory had remained unchanged for decades. And yet, the Principality has never stopped building.
This is the central paradox of Monaco’s property market: a territory with almost no land left, yet one of the busiest construction sectors in Europe. The answer to this equation is no mystery. Monaco is no longer really expanding horizontally. It is rising upwards.
An age-old challenge, a consistent response
Land pressure in Monaco is nothing new. As early as the 1960s, the Fontvieille district was built on land reclaimed from the sea, an initial land reclamation project that added around 33 hectares to the territory. Since then, every decade has seen the emergence of new projects to house a growing population on land that does not itself grow.
Today, with nearly 39,000 inhabitants spread across 2 km², Monaco is the most densely populated microstate on the planet. This density, at around 19,000 inhabitants per square kilometre, is not the result of historical chance. It is the product of a deliberate urban policy: building upwards on increasingly smaller plots, maximising each floor, and optimising every basement.
The visible result is the landscape of the Principality itself: towers of fifteen, twenty storeys or more rising from plots of land that are sometimes less than 1,000 m² in size. Entire buildings constructed where other areas would have left space for a car park or a garden. Developments that combine housing, underground car parks, public facilities and technical infrastructure within a single building, because there is no other choice.
Two projects, one approach
The Larvotto district is currently home to two construction sites that illustrate this phenomenon particularly clearly, not because they are similar, but precisely because they are diametrically opposed in their purpose yet identical in their approach.
The first is Larvotto Supérieur, a project on land owned by the Monegasque state, located at 19 Boulevard du Larvotto. The plot covers 1,100 m². On this site, the project envisages a ten-storey building, 35 apartments reserved for Monegasque residents, and two underground levels housing a data centre for Monaco Telecom. A public development that combines housing, digital infrastructure and parking on land that another country might not have deemed suitable for building. Completion is scheduled for 2027, with a budget of €45 million.
The second is The Nest, developed by the JB Pastor & Fils group in the same neighbourhood. Its nature is radically different: it is not a block of flats, but a vertical townhouse, a luxury single-family residence built upwards on a small plot. Six storeys above ground, four below, designed to offer the features of a large house—living spaces, bedrooms, amenities—in a strictly vertical layout. What the floor area lacks, the height makes up for.
These two project examples do not have the same developer, the same purpose or the same clientele. But they share the same premise: in Monaco, every square metre of floor space justifies several metres of height.
What this tells us about the market
This trend is no mere footnote for anyone looking to buy a home or invest in the Principality. It has direct and measurable consequences for the structure of the available housing supply.
Every new development, whether state-owned like Larvotto Supérieur or privately owned like The Nest, takes up a plot of land that will no longer be available. Vacant land is disappearing as building permits are granted. Testimonio II, due for completion in 2024, has been built on what industry professionals were already describing as the Principality’s last major plot of land available for development. Mareterra required the reclamation of six hectares from the sea to provide new space, an operation costing over two billion euros, with no technical equivalent anywhere in the world, and explicitly presented by Prince Albert II as a one-off exception.
The stock of private land available in the established neighbourhoods – Larvotto, Monte-Carlo, La Rousse, Carré d’Or – is therefore structurally limited and steadily decreasing. Properties on the market there, whether for sale or to let, have no close substitutes. A property in the Larvotto district today will not be replaced tomorrow by ten equivalent new units.
It is this context, rather than a commercial argument, that explains the constant tension between supply and demand in this market, and the short time it takes for well-positioned properties to sell.
Monaco is being built. Monaco is becoming more densely populated. The land, itself, does not change. Contact us to discuss this: +377 93 50 54 64 — info@continentale.mc
