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Updates: 

I found historical population data in source [7].

Mauritius went on daylight saving time in 2008-09, but only for that one season.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-4, was released on 2002-12-10. In "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", I reported that ISO 3166-2 (at that time in draft form) showed Mauritius divided into five cities, nine districts, and three dependencies. In my opinion, the five cities were not really first-level subdivisions, but were parts of two of the districts. The standard listed Port Louis city and Port Louis district, both with the code MU-PL. I didn't point out the ambiguity of the code, because I wasn't treating Port Louis city as a subdivision. In this newsletter, ISO has apparently recognized the code conflict, and changed the code for Port Louis city to MU-PU.

Country overview: 

Short name	MAURITIUS
ISO code	MU
FIPS code	MP
Language	English (en)
Time zone	+4
Capital	Port Louis

 

Although Mauritius was a British colony from 1814 until it gained independence on 1968-03-12, its place names retain a strong flavor of older times when it was the French colony of Île de France.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Mauritius
2. Dutch: Mauritius, Republiek Mauritius (formal)
3. English: Republic of Mauritius (formal)
4. Finnish: Mauritius
5. French: Maurice f
6. German: Mauritius n
7. Icelandic: Máritíus
8. Italian: Maurizio
9. Norwegian: Mauritius, Republikken Mauritius (formal)
10. Portuguese: Maurício m, Maurícia, Maurícias fp, Ilha f Maurício (Portugal), República f do Maurício (formal)
11. Russian: Республика Маврикий (formal)
12. Spanish: Mauricio m
13. Swedish: Mauritius
14. Turkish: Mauritius Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

named by early explorers after Maurice of Nassau (1567-1625)

Primary subdivisions: 

Mauritius is divided into nine districts, two dependencies, and one region.

District	Typ	HASC	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital
Agalega Islands	p	MU.AG	MP21	274	70	27	Port Louis
Black River	d	MU.BL	MP12	76,604	259	100	Tamarin
Cargados Carajos	p	MU.CC	MP22		1	0	Port Louis
Flacq	d	MU.FL	MP13	135,406	298	115	Centre de Flacq
Grand Port	d	MU.GP	MP14	110,907	259	100	Mahebourg
Moka	d	MU.MO	MP15	82,302	231	89	Moka
Pamplemousses	d	MU.PA	MP16	136,268	179	69	Pamplemousses
Plaines Wilhems	d	MU.PW	MP17	362,292	205	79	Beau Bassin-Rose Hill
Port Louis	d	MU.PL	MP18	118,431	44	17	Port Louis
Rivière du Rempart	d	MU.RR	MP19	106,267	148	57	Poudre d'Or
Rodrigues	r	MU.RO	MP23	40,434	104	40	Port Louis
Savanne	d	MU.SA	MP20	67,906	243	94	Souillac
12 divisions				1,237,091	2,041	787
Typ: d = district, p = dependency, r = region HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. If periods are replaced by hyphens, these are the same as the district codes from ISO standard 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 2011-07-03 census (source [8]).

Further subdivisions:

In addition to the divisions listed above, ISO 3166-2 lists the following five cities. The FIPS standard also listed them, calling them "urban councils", until 1991. They are all located within Plaines Wilhems district, except Port Louis, which is in Port Louis district.

City	ISO	FIPS
Beau Bassin-Rose Hill	BR	MP02
Curepipe	CU	MP04
Port Louis	PU	MP07
Quatre Bornes	QB	MP08
Vacoas-Phoenix	VP	MP11

Territorial extent: 

1. The districts (as opposed to the dependencies and region) are all mainly located on Mauritius Island.
2. Agalega Islands is an island group north of Mauritius.
3. Black River includes Île aux Bénitiers (Île Morne).
4. Cargados Carajos consists of a set of islets north of Mauritius, called the Cargados Carajos Shoals (Saint Brandon Rocks).
5. Flacq includes Île aux Cerfs.
6. Rivière du Rempart includes Flat Island, Gabriel Island, Gunner's Quoin, Île d'Ambre, and Round Island.
7. Rodrigues is an island east of Mauritius, with a few adjacent islets and shoals.

The UN LOCODE page  for Mauritius lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

Pamplemousses: French for grapefruit (plural)

Change history: 

The divisions of Mauritius according to the 1952 census were these:

District	Pop-72	Pop-52
Black River	23,866	13,430
Flacq	89,050	56,867
Grand Port	80,719	52,709
Moka	48,610	27,961
Pamplemousses	68,948	40,663
Plaines Wilhems	261,004	149,399
Port Louis	133,996	84,539
Rivière du Rempart	66,995	40,323
Rodrigues	24,769	13,333
Savanne	53,011	35,309
Other dependencies	366	1,752
Total	851,334	516,556
District: Rodrigues is a dependency. In the 1972 report, "Other dependencies" explicitly means Agalega Islands and Saint Brandon. Pop-72: 1972-06-30 census (source [6]). Pop-52: 1952-06-29 census (source [4]).

1. 1965-11-08: Chagos Archipelago dependency split from Mauritius to form British Indian Ocean Territory.
2. Source [3] (1971) shows Mauritius divided into three district councils, five urban councils, and three dependencies. The district councils (and their capitals) were Moka-Flacq (Quartier Militaire), North (Mapou), and South (Rose Belle). The urban councils were Beau Bassin-Rose Hill, Curepipe, Port Louis, Quatre Bornes, and Vacoas-Phoenix. The dependencies were Agalega Islands, Cargados Carajos Shoals, and Rodrigues Island. The urban councils are the same as the cities mentioned under "Further subdivisions". I believe that these governmental divisions are less representative than the geographical divisions in the main table.
3. ~1976: Moka-Flacq district council (capital Quartier Militaire, FIPS code MP05) split into Flacq and Moka districts. North district council (capital Triolet, FIPS code MP06) split into Pamplemousses and Rivière du Rempart districts. South district council (capital Rose Belle, FIPS code MP10) split into Black River, Grand Port, Plaines Wilhems, and Savanne districts. The five urban councils were apparently absorbed into their respective districts.
4. 2001-11-20: Status of Rodrigues Island changed from dependency to island region.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Cargados Carajos: Saint-Brandon (variant)
2. Rodrigues: Rodriguez (obsolete)

Population history:

District	1846-08-01	1851-11-20	1861-04-08	1871-04-11	1881-04-04	1891-03-06	1901-04-01	1911-03-31	1921-05-21
Black River	6,831	10,091	17,171	11,997	15,292	15,698	14,063	14,945	14,717
Flacq	19,182	24,186	41,468	49,499	56,022	56,734	55,188	51,898	53,423
Grand Port	16,756	19,082	37,207	44,226	52,982	48,169	49,568	49,079	50,373
Moka	4,661	5,725	17,704	21,236	29,768	32,552	35,258	32,719	29,897
Pamplemousses	28,815	32,036	53,598	42,978	37,670	38,547	39,017	37,381	37,448
Plaines Wilhems	12,784	13,893	28,020	35,147	46,315	57,591	63,634	67,866	75,688
Port Louis	45,212	49,909	74,525	63,274	66,652	62,169	52,740	50,060	50,307
Rivière du Rempart	15,061	16,030	19,331	20,242	20,726	24,151	26,679	31,051	31,807
Rodrigues		495	693	1,108	1,431	2,068	3,162	4,829	6,584
Savanne	9,160	9,871	21,026	27,443	34,447	34,977	34,876	33,792	32,825
Total	158,462	181,318	310,743	317,150	361,305	372,656	374,185	373,620	383,069

 

District	1931-04-26	1944-06-11	1952-06-30	1962-06-30	1972-06-30	1983-07-02	1990-07-01	2000-07-02	2011-07-03
Black River	14,263	12,502	13,430	18,568	26,171	36,861	43,768	60,587	76,604
Flacq	52,640	50,842	56,867	73,061	89,050	107,670	112,773	126,839	135,406
Grand Port	48,619	46,533	52,709	69,023	80,719	93,180	96,667	106,665	110,907
Moka	29,283	22,863	27,961	37,245	48,610	61,209	65,176	75,479	82,302
Pamplemousses	36,847	34,131	40,663	55,899	68,948	90,466	101,666	122,252	136,268
Plaines Wilhems	95,258	120,170	149,614	208,184	258,699	303,993	321,713	358,182	362,292
Port Louis	54,435	65,962	84,539	119,950	133,996	133,702	133,073	127,855	118,431
Rivière du Rempart	30,792	33,238	40,323	53,309	66,995	80,993	86,779	98,854	106,267
Rodrigues	8,202	11,885	13,333	18,335	24,769	33,082	34,204	35,779	40,434
Savanne	31,101	32,944	35,309	46,380	53,011	58,789	60,841	66,356	67,906
Total	401,440	431,070	514,748	699,954	850,968	999,945	1,056,660	1,178,848	1,236,817

 

Data from source [7], except for 2011 census (source [8]). A few of these data disagree with those shown under Change history. Source [7] excludes "Other dependencies," i.e., Agalega Islands. For 1952, source [4] has a footnote indicating that the total includes "215 European mililary personnel and 56 crew members and passengers on ships in harbour." Source [7] must have put those 215 people in Plaines Wilhems, and omitted the 56 completely. For 1972, source [7] has moved 2,305 people from Black River to Plaines Wilhems. All totals exclude Agalega Islands.

Sources: 

1. [1] L'Évaluation des effectifs de la population des pays Africains, Tome I. Groupe de Démographie Africaine, Paris, 1982.
2. [2] There were maps showing the wards on Mauritius Island and the zones on Rodrigues Island at http://ncb.intnet.mu/cso/report/hpcen00/Demogra/apen1.htm and http://ncb.intnet.mu/cso/report/hpcen00/Demogra/appen3.htm, respectively (retrieved 2002-12-15). The links are dead now.
3. [3] Geographic Report No. 16, issued by the office of the Geographer, Department of State, 1971-10-27.
4. [4] Demographic Yearbook , 7th Ed. Statistical Office of the United Nations, New York, 1955 (retrieved 2011-08-20).
5. [5] Annual Digest of Statistics 2009 , Vol. 54. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Central Statistics Office, 2010-07 (retrieved 2011-09-17). Contains data from sixteen censuses 1851-2000, limited to total population of the country (excluding dependencies), of Mauritius Island, and of Rodrigues Island (p. 14). Also contains 1990 and 2000 census data by district (p.17).
6. [6] 1979 Demographic Yearbook , 31st Ed. Statistical Office, United Nations, New York, 1980 (retrieved 2011-12-28).
7. [7] Historical Series-Census : Table 3 - Population enumerated at each census by district and sex, 1846–2000 (retrieved 2013-07-31).
8. [8] 2011 Housing and Population Census . Volume VI, Geographical and migration characteristics. Port Louis, 2012-10 (retrieved 2013-07-31).