CyprusΚύπρος · Kıbrıs

People reached Cyprus by boat more than 10,000 years ago, and by about 7000 BC farmers were living in round stone houses at Choirokoitia, between Nicosia and Limassol. In the Bronze Age the island became a major source of copper — the metal's name probably comes from the island's — and traded with Egypt, the Hittites and the Aegean. From the 12th century BC Mycenaean Greeks settled and founded city-kingdoms, joined later by Phoenicians at Kition, today's Larnaca.

The island passed through Assyrian, Egyptian and Persian hands before Alexander's successors, the Ptolemies of Egypt, took it. Rome annexed Cyprus in 58 BC; Paphos became its capital, and its villa floors carry some of the finest mosaics of the Roman world. Christianity arrived early: the Book of Acts records Paul and Barnabas preaching here, and the Church of Cyprus has governed itself since the 5th century.

For eight centuries Cyprus was Byzantine, raided repeatedly by Arab fleets and for a while held as a shared, demilitarised zone between Constantinople and the Caliphate. In 1191 Richard the Lionheart seized the island on his way to the Third Crusade and sold it on; from 1192 the French Lusignan family ruled it as a Crusader kingdom, building Gothic cathedrals in Nicosia and Famagusta. Venice took control in 1489 and ringed Nicosia and Famagusta with the massive bastioned walls that still define both old towns.

The Ottomans conquered Cyprus in 1570–71 after the siege of Famagusta. They restored the Orthodox archbishop as a community leader, settled Turkish Muslims on the island and ruled for three centuries. In 1878 Britain took over administration under a deal with the Sultan, annexed Cyprus in 1914 and made it a crown colony in 1925. Greek Cypriot demands for enosis — union with Greece — grew into the EOKA armed campaign of 1955–59, while many Turkish Cypriots came to favour partition.

Independence in 1960 came with a power-sharing constitution and guarantees from Britain, Greece and Turkey. It broke down in intercommunal fighting in 1963–64, when UN peacekeepers arrived and Turkish Cypriots withdrew into enclaves. In July 1974 a coup backed by the Greek military junta overthrew President Makarios; Turkey invaded five days later and took the northern third of the island. About 200,000 people were displaced in both directions, and the line between the armies became the buffer zone.

The north declared itself a separate state in 1983, recognised only by Turkey. In 2003 the first crossings opened and hundreds of thousands of people visited homes they had not seen in decades. A UN reunification plan was accepted by Turkish Cypriots and rejected by Greek Cypriots in 2004, a week before the whole island formally joined the EU — with EU law suspended in the north. Talks at Crans-Montana collapsed in 2017; since then the crossings have become routine while the political question remains open.

Before 1974 Greek and Turkish Cypriots lived across the whole island, often in mixed villages, sharing a food culture, music and a lot of vocabulary. The division sorted them: Greek Cypriots now live almost entirely in the south, Turkish Cypriots in the north. Around them are newer populations — settlers and workers from Turkey in the north; British retirees, Russians, Ukrainians, Israelis, and workers from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and South Asia in the south.

Family and village ties remain central. Many Cypriots can name their village of origin even if they grew up in Nicosia, and refugees from 1974 often still identify by the village they left: associations of displaced villagers meet, publish newsletters and, since 2003, organise visits. Property left behind is a live legal and emotional issue on both sides, which is why visitors hear so much about title deeds.

British rule left a surprising amount of everyday life: driving on the left, three-pin plugs, a legal system rooted in English common law, red postboxes and widespread English. The two Sovereign Base Areas, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, remain British territory covering about 3 per cent of the island, with Cypriot villages inside them.

Education is prized and Cypriots are among the most highly educated people in Europe, with many studying in Greece, Britain or Turkey. Limassol has become a business city of shipping management, finance and tech, pulling in foreign workers and pushing up rents; Nicosia is the administrative and university centre. Politics is intense and local: parties divide less on economics than on how to solve the Cyprus problem.

The Church of Cyprus is one of the oldest self-governing Orthodox churches, independent since 431. Its archbishop has long been a political as well as religious leader: under the Ottomans he represented the Greek Cypriot community, and Archbishop Makarios III became the first president of the republic. Churches are the heart of village life, and the year turns on Orthodox feasts, above all Easter, when Good Friday processions and midnight Resurrection services fill every church.

Monasteries hold a special place. Kykkos, founded around 1100 in the western Troodos, keeps an icon of the Virgin attributed by tradition to St Luke and was the base of Makarios's early career. Stavrovouni, on a peak above the Larnaca road, claims a relic of the True Cross and is closed to women. Many monasteries still produce wine, honey and icons.

Turkish Cypriots are Sunni Muslims, but secular in outlook: alcohol is widely drunk, few women cover their hair, and religious practice is quieter than in mainland Turkey. Ottoman mosques include the converted Gothic cathedrals of Nicosia (Selimiye) and Famagusta (Lala Mustafa Pasha), and Hala Sultan Tekke on the Larnaca salt lake, a shrine revered across the Muslim world.

Smaller communities have deep roots: Maronite Catholics, with villages such as Kormakitis in the north; Armenians, whose church in Nicosia dates back centuries; and Latin Catholics. For visitors, the practical points are dress in churches and monasteries, silence during services, and the calendar — Orthodox Easter shuts the south for days, while the Bayrams shift the rhythm in the north.

The Troodos painted churches are the island's great artistic treasure. From the outside they look like barns: stone walls under steep wooden roofs added to shed snow. Inside, walls and vaults are covered in frescoes from the 11th to the 16th centuries, tracing Byzantine painting from its Komnenian peak at Asinou and Lagoudera to Italian-influenced work of the Venetian period. Ten of them are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

Roman Paphos gave the island its most famous floors. The mosaics of the Houses of Dionysos, Theseus, Aion and Orpheus show myths, hunting scenes and wine in fine stone cubes, and were uncovered by chance by a farmer in 1962. Kourion adds a clifftop theatre and the early Christian mosaics of its basilica; in the north, Salamis has a gymnasium lined with columns and statues.

Medieval Cyprus is Gothic in a way few places east of Italy are. Nicosia's St Sophia and Famagusta's St Nicholas, both now mosques with minarets added to their French facades, were coronation churches of the Lusignan kings. Bellapais Abbey above Kyrenia and the fairy-tale ruins of St Hilarion on the Kyrenia range complete the set. The Venetians then added some of the most complete Renaissance fortifications in the world.

Crafts carry the domestic tradition: Lefkara lace (lefkaritika), on UNESCO's intangible list since 2009, reputedly admired by Leonardo da Vinci; basket weaving; pottery from Kornos and Foini; and silverwork. Oral poetry survives in tsattista, improvised rhyming duels performed at fairs, also UNESCO-listed. Modern Cypriot art and design gather in Nicosia's galleries and the Limassol art scene.

Cypriot cooking is the island's shared language. Greek and Turkish Cypriots name dishes differently — sheftalia or şeftali, halloumi or hellim — but cook them the same way, with lemon, mint, coriander seed, yoghurt and charcoal. The meze, a long run of small plates, is the social form of the meal: a Sunday meze can last four hours.

Halloumi is the island's emblem, made for centuries from sheep and goat milk, folded with mint and stored in brine; since 2021 it has EU protected designation of origin, after years of dispute over the share of cow's milk allowed. Village women still make it at home in the Troodos and Paphos hills. Other staples are pulses and greens for fasting days, taro (kolokasi), and slow-cooked lamb from the clay oven.

The Orthodox calendar shapes eating in the south. Lent and other fasting periods mean meat- and dairy-free dishes — beans, vegetables, bread, octopus — while Easter brings flaounes (cheese pastries) and the lamb on the souvla. In the north, dishes such as molehiya and pirohu show Anatolian and Levantine ties.

Wine has been made here for at least five thousand years. Commandaria, a sweet wine from sun-dried grapes in villages above Limassol, claims to be the oldest named wine still in production. Phylloxera never reached the island, so local grapes such as xynisteri and maratheftiko grow on their own roots; small wineries in the Troodos have revived them. Zivania, a clear spirit distilled from the leftovers of winemaking, and the brandy sour complete the drinks.

Cyprus is two mountain ranges and a plain. The Troodos massif in the south-west is a slice of ancient ocean floor pushed up from the seabed — geologists come to study its ophiolite rocks — and rises to Mount Olympos at 1,952 m. The narrow limestone Kyrenia range runs along the north coast. Between them the Mesaoria plain, dry and treeless in summer, holds Nicosia and the island's wheat fields.

Water is the island's constant problem. Rivers dry up in summer, droughts are frequent, and much drinking water now comes from desalination plants. Forests of Calabrian pine and the endemic golden oak cover the Troodos, but summer wildfires are a growing risk as the climate warms; recent fires near Limassol killed people and burned villages.

Wildlife is richer than it looks: loggerhead and green turtles nest on beaches at Lara and in the north, the salt lakes host flamingos in winter, and the island lies on a major bird migration route. The shy mouflon, a wild mountain sheep, is the national animal and lives in the Paphos forest.

The modern economy runs on tourism, shipping management, financial and professional services, and a growing tech sector. The 2013 banking crisis, when large deposits were cut to rescue the banks, still shapes attitudes to money; a 'golden passport' scheme was scrapped in 2020 after scandal. Offshore gas finds promise future revenue, and the island's role in regional evacuations and politics has grown with conflict nearby.