In his New Universal Geography published between 1876 and 1894, the geographer Élisée Reclus nicknamed Menton the pearl of France. Also the easternmost city of the Côte d'Azur, Menton experiences a particular situation as an enclave between the two sovereign states of Italy and the Principality of Monaco. Together with the Saint-Laurent peninsula in Finistère, Menton also holds the record for the longest possible distance as the crow flies between two points in mainland France, with 673 mi (1,084 km).