Portal:Cyprus
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The Cyprus Portal
Cyprus (/ˈsaɪprəs/ ⓘ), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, north of the Sinai Peninsula, south of the Anatolian Peninsula, and west of the Levant. It is geographically a part of West Asia, but its cultural ties and geopolitics are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is east of Greece, north of Egypt, south of Turkey, and west of Lebanon and Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia. The northeast portion of the island is de facto governed by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains include the well-preserved ruins from the Hellenistic period such as Salamis and Kourion, and Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC. As a strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was subsequently occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, from whom the island was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Subsequent rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914).
Cyprus was placed under the United Kingdom's administration based on the Cyprus Convention in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. The future of the island became a matter of disagreement between the two prominent ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots, who made up 77% of the population in 1960, and Turkish Cypriots, who made up 18% of the population. From the 19th century onwards, the Greek Cypriot population pursued enosis, union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s. The Turkish Cypriot population initially advocated the continuation of the British rule, then demanded the annexation of the island to Turkey, and in the 1950s, together with Turkey, established a policy of taksim, the partition of Cyprus and the creation of a Turkish polity in the north. (Full article...)
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Turkish Cypriots or Cypriot Turks (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkleri or Kıbrıslı Türkler; Greek: Τουρκοκύπριοι, romanized: Tourkokýprioi) are ethnic Turks originating from Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots are mainly Sunni Muslims. Following the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1571, about 30,000 Turkish settlers were given land once they arrived in Cyprus. Additionally, many of the island's local Christians converted to Islam during the early years of Ottoman rule. Nonetheless, the influx of mainly Muslim settlers to Cyprus continued intermittently until the end of the Ottoman period. Today, while Northern Cyprus is home to a significant part of the Turkish Cypriot population, the majority of Turkish Cypriots live abroad, forming the Turkish Cypriot diaspora. This diaspora came into existence after the Ottoman Empire transferred the control of the island to the British Empire, as many Turkish Cypriots emigrated primarily to Turkey and the United Kingdom for political and economic reasons.
Standard Turkish is the official language of Northern Cyprus. The vernacular spoken by Turkish Cypriots is Cypriot Turkish, which has been influenced by Cypriot Greek, as well as English. (Full article...)Cyprus news
General images
- Image 1Cypriot cult image. 'Red Polished Ware', 2100–2000 BC. Museum zu Allerheiligen (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 3Kyrenia Castle was originally built by the Byzantines and enlarged by the Venetians. (from Cyprus)
- Image 5"TAKSİM" (division) graffiti on a wall in Nicosia in the late 1950s (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 6A British soldier facing a crowd of Greek Cypriot demonstrators in Nicosia (1956) (from Cyprus)
- Image 8Greek Cypriot negotiator Andreas Mavroyiannis and the Turkish Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Feridun Sinirlioğlu, in Ankara, within the scope of the 2014 Cyprus talks (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 10Ioannis Kigalas (c. 1622–1687) was a Nicosia born Greek Cypriot scholar and professor of Philosophy who was largely active in the 17th century. (from Cyprus)
- Image 12The Armenian Alphabet at the Melkonian Educational Institute. Armenian is recognised as a minority language in Cyprus. (from Cyprus)
- Image 13Zeus Keraunios, 500-480 BC, Nicosia museum (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 15Archaeological site of Khirokitia with early remains of human habitation during the Aceramic Neolithic period (reconstruction) (from Cyprus)
- Image 17A Greek Cypriot demonstration in the 1930s in favour of Enosis (union) with Greece (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 18Supreme Court of Justice (from Cyprus)
- Image 19Varosha (Maraş), a suburb of Famagusta, was abandoned when its inhabitants fled in 1974 and remains under Turkish military control. (from Cyprus)
- Image 22Street close to the Nicosia border (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 24Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, consecrated in 1328, the largest medieval building in Famagusta, where the Kings of Cyprus were crowned also as Kings of Jerusalem. In 1571 having fallen to the Ottoman Empire it became the Mosque of Mağusa, and remains a mosque today (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 25Red-polished ceramics from Enkomi, 1900–1725 BC. St. Barnabas Archaeological Museum, Salamis, Cyprus (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 27Population growth, 1961–2003 (numbers for the entire island, excluding Turkish settlers residing in Northern Cyprus) (from Cyprus)
- Image 28Cyprus is part of a monetary union, the eurozone (dark blue) and of the EU single market. (from Cyprus)
- Image 30Street in the divided capital of Nicosia (from Cyprus)
- Image 31The "Green Line" in Nicosia, Cyprus. (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 34The north–south checkpoint has been open since 2003 (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 35Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer Piri Reis' historical map of Cyprus (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 37Base ring vessel of Late Bronze Age (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 38Welcoming ceremony of the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev by the soldiers of the Cypriot National Guard (from Cyprus)
- Image 39Foreign Ministers of the European Union countries in Limassol during Cyprus Presidency of the EU in 2012 (from Cyprus)
- Image 40A map showing the division of Cyprus (from Cyprus)
- Image 41Hoisting the British flag at Nicosia (from Cyprus)
- Image 42A copper mine in Cyprus. In antiquity, Cyprus was a major source of copper. (from Cyprus)
- Image 43The Walls of Nicosia were built by the Venetians to defend the city in case of an Ottoman attack. (from Cyprus)
- Image 44Proposed flag of the United Republic of Cyprus (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 45Büyük Han, a caravanserai in Nicosia, is an example of the surviving Ottoman architecture in Cyprus. (from Cyprus)
- Image 49Zeus Keraunios, 500–480 BC, Nicosia museum (from Cyprus)
- Image 51Cypri insvla nova descript 1573, Ioannes á Deutecum f[ecit]. Map of Cyprus newly drawn by Johannes van Deutecom, 1573. (from Cyprus)
- Image 52 (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 53Limassol General Hospital (from Cyprus)
- Image 562010 population by age and gender (from Cyprus)
- Image 57Statue of Liberty symbolising the independence of Cyprus. (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 58Cyprus in 1482 (from History of Cyprus)
- Image 60Turkish rally in Nicosia in January 1958 (from Cyprus problem)
- Image 61Ethnic map of Cyprus according to the 1960 census (from Cyprus)
- Image 62Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan was the creator of the Annan plan. (from Cyprus problem)
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