Fascinating Facts About Monaco

Monaco is luxury personified. An haven for the rich, the country is filled with seafront villas, in turn filled with millionaires and billionaires. In fact, every third person in Monaco is a millionaire.

So why does this tiny country (the 2nd smallest in the world after Vatican City) attract so many rich people? Put simply there are no individual taxes in Monaco, which has led to Monaco being labeled a Tax Haven. This isn't a recent development either as there have been no taxes on individuals since 1869.

And why does Monaco have no individual taxes? The answer is the state-run casinos. Facing a perilous financial situation, the royal family in the 1850s decided to start a casino.

Pretty soon the income generated was so much from these casinos that they could afford not taxing individuals.

The number of casinos since that time has only increased but one important thing to note is that the residents of the country itself are not allowed inside these casinos. This to protect the country's money and not allow it to go out of the country.

All this has led to Monaco having the highest income per capita in the world, the highest density of millionaires and billionaires and not a single person living in poverty.

Monaco is also one of the most policed countries in the world with there being one policeman for every 100 citizens. The country is also almost 100% under CCTV surveillance.

Due to historical and geographical ties, most of the people living here are French and Italian. The border to Italy is only about 9 miles away while the defense of Monaco is the ultimate responsibility of France. This makes the local Monégasque a minority in their own country. French is even the national language of Monaco.

Owing to it's small size, Monaco doesn't have a large sporting presence with no competitor from the country having won a single Olympic Medal. The French league called AS Monaco is one of the biggest football clubs in Monaco.

It does however host such prestigious sporting events as the Monaco F1 Grand Prix or the Monte-Carlo Tennis Masters tournament.

As previously mentioned, Monaco is really tiny. Its land area is just 0.78 square miles or about 0.25% of the land area of New York City.

Another way to measure the humongous scale of wealth in Monaco is to look at it's GDP.

With a total GDP of more than 7 Billion Dollars, it is more than the GDP of Central African Republic despite the population of Monaco being only 0.81% of the population of Central African Republic or only having 0.0003% of the land area.