Monaco Emoji

The Monaco flag emoji 🇲🇨 is not a picture stored in Unicode but a pair of letters: the regional indicator symbols 🇲 and 🇨, Monaco's country code MC. Phones and Macs draw the pair as the flag; Windows has no country flag pictures in its emoji font, so there the same emoji shows as the letters MC. It is still the flag, and anyone who receives it on a phone sees 🇲🇨. Typing 'monaco' in the emoji search of iPhone, Android or WhatsApp finds it.

The flag is two horizontal stripes, red over white, the heraldic colours of the Grimaldi family, who have ruled Monaco since the Middle Ages. The princely state adopted it in 1881. At emoji size it is practically the same as 🇮🇩 Indonesia, which is also red over white; the only difference between the real flags is their shape, 4:5 for Monaco and 2:3 for Indonesia, and most emoji fonts draw every flag in the same shape, so the two emoji look identical. 🇵🇱 Poland is the reverse, white over red. When it matters which one you mean, write the name beside it, or add a Monaco emoji such as 🏎️ or 🎰.

Monaco emoji meanings: 🏎️ 🎰 🛥️ 👑 🏰

🏎️ and 🏁 are the Monaco Grand Prix, run through the streets of the principality since 1929 and part of the Formula 1 world championship since its first season in 1950. The cars climb from the harbour past the Casino, dive through the tunnel and come back along the quay, and the first corner is named after the little church of Sainte-Dévote that stands beside it. 🏆🍾 is the podium, where the winner receives the trophy from the Prince. Monaco has a second motor race of its own, the Monte Carlo Rally 🚗, held since 1911. Charles Leclerc, who was born in Monaco, won his home Grand Prix in 2024, the first Monégasque to do so since Louis Chiron in 1931.

🎰 ♠️ ♥️ 🎲 are the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the Belle Époque building on Place du Casino whose opera hall, the Salle Garnier, was designed by Charles Garnier, the architect of the Paris Opéra. The district around it, Monte-Carlo, is not a separate town but one of Monaco's quarters, named after Prince Charles III. 🤵💎🥂 is the black-tie evening there, 🌃🏨 the lit-up harbour and the grand hotels on the square.

🛥️ ⚓ ⛵ 🛳️ are Port Hercule, the harbour in La Condamine, full of yachts and visited by cruise ships, and the setting of the Monaco Yacht Show every September. 👑 🏰 🤴 👸 stand for the Prince's Palace on the Rock 🪨, the old town of Monaco-Ville, and the Grimaldi family who live there; 💂 is the Carabiniers du Prince, whose changing of the guard in front of the palace happens every day just before noon. 🗡️ comes from the coat of arms, where two monks hold swords, a memory of 1297, when François Grimaldi took the fortress on the Rock disguised as a monk. 💒 is the wedding of Prince Rainier III and the film star Grace Kelly in 1956, the most famous day in Monaco's modern history.

🐠 🐙 🦈 🐢 🪸 are the Oceanographic Museum, built into the cliff of the Rock by Prince Albert I, the sailor-scientist prince, and opened in 1910; Jacques-Yves Cousteau 🤿 was its director from 1957 to 1988. 🐬 🐋 are the dolphins and whales of the Pelagos sanctuary that Monaco, France and Italy protect together in the sea offshore. 🌵 is the Exotic Garden, whose cacti and succulents grow on a cliff above the town, and 🌹 the Princess Grace Rose Garden in Fontvieille.

Stage, screen and sport in Monaco

🎭 🩰 🎻 are the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic; in the early twentieth century Diaghilev's Ballets Russes made Monte-Carlo their home base. 🎪 🤡 are the International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo, founded by Rainier III in 1974 and held every January, whose top prize is a Golden Clown. 🎬 recalls Grace Kelly's Hollywood career, and 📺 the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.

⚽ is AS Monaco, which plays in the French league from the Stade Louis II in Fontvieille, in red and white, and has been champion of France eight times; 🏀 is its basketball team. 🎾 is the Monte-Carlo Masters, the clay-court tennis tournament played each April at the Monte-Carlo Country Club, just across the border in France, which Rafael Nadal won eleven times. 🏃 is the Herculis athletics meeting at the Stade Louis II, a stop on the Diamond League.

Monaco holidays and Monégasque food emoji

27 January is the feast of Sainte-Dévote, Monaco's patron saint. Legend says her body was carried by boat and guided by a dove 🕊️ to the shore of Monaco; on the evening before her feast a boat is burned 🔥 in front of her church ⛪, in memory of the thieves who tried to steal her relics and had their boat set alight. 19 November is National Day, with a mass in the cathedral, the princely family on the palace balcony and fireworks 🎆 over the harbour; people post 🇲🇨❤️🤍 and Bonne fête nationale !

The national dish is barbagiuan 🥟, a small fried pastry filled with Swiss chard 🥬 and ricotta 🧀, eaten above all on National Day; its name means 'Uncle John' in Monégasque. 🐟🍅🫒 is stocafi, dried cod stewed with tomatoes, olives and white wine. 🫓 is fougasse monégasque, a sweet flat bread scented with orange blossom and topped with almonds and aniseed comfits, and 🧅 the onion tart pissaladière that Monaco shares with neighbouring Nice. 🍷 is the rosé and white wine of the Riviera on the table.

Monaco symbols: the euro and French letters

Monaco is not in the European Union, but by agreement with it the principality uses the euro € and mints its own euro coins, with the reigning prince on its €1 and €2 coins; because so few are made, collectors prize them. Prices are written in the French way, after the amount: 20 €. Before 2002 Monaco had the Monégasque franc, worth exactly one French franc ₣, and French francs circulated freely beside it.

French is Monaco's official language, and CLDR lists about 31,000 French speakers in Monaco. Its letters beyond A–Z are the grave à è ù, the acute é, the circumflex â ê î ô û, the diaeresis ë ï ü ÿ, the cedilla ç and the ligatures œ and æ, with « » guillemets for quotes, written with a space inside. On Windows, Alt+0233 gives é, Alt+0232 è, Alt+0224 à, Alt+0231 ç, Alt+0171 « and Alt+0128 €; on a Mac, Option+E then E gives é, Option+C gives ç, Option+\ gives « and Option+Shift+2 gives €; on a phone, hold the plain letter. In HTML they are é, ç, « and €. The French collection has every letter and how to type it, and the France collection the emoji of the country around Monaco.

Monégasque, a Ligurian language close to the dialect of Genoa, is the principality's own traditional language. It is taught in Monaco's schools and appears beside French on the street signs of the old town on the Rock. Italian and English are widely heard as well.