Portal:Cyprus

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.

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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Nicosia, the island's financial hub

The economy of Cyprus is a high-income economy as classified by the World Bank, and was included by the International Monetary Fund in its list of advanced economies in 2001. Cyprus adopted the euro as its official currency on 1 January 2008, replacing the Cypriot pound at an irrevocable fixed exchange rate of CYP 0.585274 per €1.

The 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis, part of the wider European debt crisis, has dominated the country's economic affairs in recent times. In March 2013, the Cypriot government reached an agreement with its eurozone partners to split the country's second biggest bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank (also known as Laiki Bank), into a "bad" bank which would be wound down over time and a "good" bank which would be absorbed by the larger Bank of Cyprus. In return for a €10 billion bailout from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Cypriot government would be required to impose a significant haircut on uninsured deposits. Insured deposits of €100,000 or less would not be affected. After a three-and-a-half-year recession, Cyprus returned to growth in the first quarter of 2015. Cyprus successfully concluded its three-year financial assistance programme at the end of March 2016, having borrowed a total of €6.3 billion from the European Stability Mechanism and €1 billion from the IMF. The remaining €2.7 billion of the ESM bailout was never dispensed, due to the Cypriot government's better than expected finances over the course of the programme. (Full article...)

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Cyprus news

14 April 2024 –: Cyprus suspends Syrian asylum applications as there are increasing numbers of refugees. (Reuters)

General images

The following are images from various Cyprus-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Cypri insvla nova descript 1573, Ioannes á Deutecum f[ecit]. Map of Cyprus newly drawn by Johannes van Deutecom, 1573. (from Cyprus)
Image 2Base ring vessel of Late Bronze Age (from History of Cyprus)
Image 3A Greek Cypriot demonstration in the 1930s in favour of Enosis (union) with Greece (from Cyprus problem)
Image 4Welcoming ceremony of the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev by the soldiers of the Cypriot National Guard (from Cyprus)
Image 5Dhekelia Power Station (from Cyprus)
Image 6Opening of Ledra Street in April 2008 (from Cyprus problem)
Image 7Greek Cypriot demonstrations for Enosis (union with Greece) in 1930 (from Cyprus)
Image 82010 population by age and gender (from Cyprus)
Image 9Sea caves at Cape Greco (from Cyprus)
Image 10Cypriot demonstrations for Enosis (Union) with Greece. (from History of Cyprus)
Image 11A Sentinel-2 image of Cyprus taken in 2022 (from Cyprus)
Image 12Red-polished ceramics from Enkomi, 1900–1725 BC. St. Barnabas Archaeological Museum, Salamis, Cyprus (from History of Cyprus)
Image 13Cypriot Halloumi (from Cyprus)
Image 14Central Bank of Cyprus (from Cyprus)
Image 15Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan was the creator of the Annan plan. (from Cyprus problem)
Image 16The entrance of the historic Pancyprian Gymnasium (from Cyprus)
Image 17Presidential Palace, Nicosia (from Cyprus)
Image 18Statue of Liberty symbolising the independence of Cyprus. (from History of Cyprus)
Image 19Faneromeni School is the oldest all-girl primary school in Cyprus. (from Cyprus)
Image 20Ayia Paraskevi Byzantine church in Yeroskipou, Cyprus (from History of Cyprus)
Image 21Zeus Keraunios, 500-480 BC, Nicosia museum (from History of Cyprus)
Image 22Ioannis 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 23The Walls of Nicosia were built by the Venetians to defend the city in case of an Ottoman attack. (from Cyprus)
Image 24The north–south checkpoint has been open since 2003 (from Cyprus problem)
Image 25Ethnic map of Cyprus according to the 1960 census (from Cyprus)
Image 26Cypriot cult image. 'Red Polished Ware', 2100–2000 BC. Museum zu Allerheiligen (from History of Cyprus)
Image 27The "Green Line" in Nicosia, Cyprus. (from Cyprus problem)
Image 28A copper mine in Cyprus. In antiquity, Cyprus was a major source of copper. (from Cyprus)
Image 29Proposed flag of the United Republic of Cyprus (from Cyprus problem)
Image 30Kyrenia Castle was originally built by the Byzantines and enlarged by the Venetians. (from Cyprus)
Image 31Population growth, 1961–2003 (numbers for the entire island, excluding Turkish settlers residing in Northern Cyprus) (from Cyprus)
Image 32Cyprus is part of a monetary union, the eurozone (dark blue) and of the EU single market. (from Cyprus)
Image 33Cypriot style café in an arcade in Nicosia (from Cyprus)
Image 34Varosha (Maraş), a suburb of Famagusta, was abandoned when its inhabitants fled in 1974 and remains under Turkish military control. (from Cyprus)
Image 35The Troodos Mountains experience heavy snowfall in winter. (from Cyprus)
Image 36Greek 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 37Street close to the Nicosia border (from Cyprus problem)
Image 38Foreign Ministers of the European Union countries in Limassol during Cyprus Presidency of the EU in 2012 (from Cyprus)
Image 39Kouris Dam overflow in April 2012 (from Cyprus)
Image 40Atatürk Square, North Nicosia in 2006 (from Cyprus problem)
Image 41Spyros Kyprianou Athletic Centre in Limassol (from Cyprus)
Image 42Laouto, dominant instrument of the Cypriot traditional music (from Cyprus)
Image 43Cypriot meze (from Cyprus)
Image 44Büyük Han, a caravanserai in Nicosia, is an example of the surviving Ottoman architecture in Cyprus. (from Cyprus)
Image 45A British soldier facing a crowd of Greek Cypriot demonstrators in Nicosia (1956) (from Cyprus)
Image 46
  Under the control of the Republic of Cyprus
  The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
  Turkey
  Greece
(from Cyprus problem)
Image 47The Armenian Alphabet at the Melkonian Educational Institute. Armenian is recognised as a minority language in Cyprus. (from Cyprus)
Image 48Typical Cypriot architecture in old part of Nicosia, Cyprus (from Cyprus)
Image 49Turkish rally in Nicosia in January 1958 (from Cyprus problem)
Image 50Hoisting the British flag at Nicosia (from Cyprus)
Image 51"TAKSİM" (division) graffiti on a wall in Nicosia in the late 1950s (from Cyprus problem)
Image 52A map showing the division of Cyprus (from Cyprus)
Image 53UN tower in the buffer zone (from Cyprus)
Image 54Archaeological site of Khirokitia with early remains of human habitation during the Aceramic Neolithic period (reconstruction) (from Cyprus)
Image 55Supreme Court of Justice (from Cyprus)
Image 56Cyprus in 1482 (from History of Cyprus)
Image 57Cathedral 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 58Khirokitia archeological site. (from History of Cyprus)
Image 59Ottoman admiral, geographer and cartographer Piri Reis' historical map of Cyprus (from Cyprus problem)
Image 60Street in the divided capital of Nicosia (from Cyprus)
Image 61Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (from Cyprus)
Image 62
Accession of Cyprus to the European Union in 2004
(from Cyprus problem)
Image 63Nikos Christodoulides, President of Cyprus since February 2023 (from Cyprus)
Image 64Zeus Keraunios, 500–480 BC, Nicosia museum (from Cyprus)
Image 65Limassol General Hospital (from Cyprus)