Northern CyprusKuzey Kıbrıs

Cyprus has been settled for more than ten thousand years. In the late Bronze Age it exported copper — the metal may take its name from the island — and Greek-speaking settlers founded city-kingdoms such as Salamis on the east coast. Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians claimed it in turn; Alexander's successors and then Rome ruled it, and Salamis, rebuilt as Constantia, was the island's Christian capital until Arab raids in the 7th century.

In 1191 Richard the Lionheart seized Cyprus on his way to the Third Crusade and sold it; from 1192 the French Lusignan dynasty ruled a crusader kingdom for three centuries. They built the Gothic cathedrals of St Sophia in Nicosia and St Nicholas in Famagusta, Bellapais Abbey and the mountain castles of St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara. Famagusta grew rich as the last Christian port facing the Levant.

Venice took the island in 1489 and ringed Nicosia and Famagusta with modern artillery walls. They were not enough: in 1570–71 the Ottomans captured Nicosia and then, after a long siege, Famagusta. Three centuries of Ottoman rule followed. Cathedrals became mosques, Turkish-speaking Muslims settled across the island, and the Orthodox Church became the leading institution of the Greek Cypriots.

Britain took over administration in 1878 and annexed Cyprus in 1914; it became a crown colony in 1925. From the 1950s Greek Cypriots fought a guerrilla campaign (EOKA) for enosis — union with Greece — while Turkish Cypriots increasingly called for partition (taksim). Independence in 1960 created a republic with an elaborate power-sharing constitution and guarantees from Britain, Greece and Turkey; Britain kept two sovereign military bases.

The constitution broke down within three years. Intercommunal fighting at Christmas 1963 pushed Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, and a British officer drew a line across Nicosia in green pencil to separate the sides — the origin of the name Green Line. UN peacekeepers arrived in 1964 and have stayed ever since.

In July 1974 the military junta in Athens backed a coup against Cyprus's president, Archbishop Makarios, aiming at union with Greece. Turkey, citing its role as a guarantor, landed troops near Kyrenia on 20 July and, in a second offensive in August, took about 37 percent of the island. Around 160,000 Greek Cypriots fled or were expelled south, and tens of thousands of Turkish Cypriots moved north. Thousands died or went missing on both sides; a joint committee still searches for remains.

The Turkish Cypriot leadership declared the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1975 and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983. The UN Security Council called the declaration legally invalid, and no state except Turkey recognises it. The resort of Varosha, south of Famagusta, was fenced off and left empty for 46 years.

The line stayed closed to ordinary people until April 2003, when crossings suddenly opened and thousands queued to see houses and villages they had left. In 2004 the UN's Annan Plan for reunification was approved by 65 percent of Turkish Cypriots but rejected by 76 percent of Greek Cypriots; a week later the Republic joined the EU, with EU law suspended in the north. Talks have restarted and stalled many times since, most recently after 2017.

Turkish Cypriots have lived on the island since the Ottoman conquest, and their dialect, food and customs are distinctly Cypriot — closer to their Greek Cypriot neighbours in many ways than to mainland Turkey. Since 1974 large numbers of people from Turkey have settled in the north, and together with students, workers and foreign retirees they now make up a large part of the population. Exact figures are disputed and politically sensitive.

Islam in the north is mostly relaxed: many Turkish Cypriots drink alcohol, few women cover their hair, and secular traditions from Kemalist Turkey and British rule run deep. Religious practice has become more visible with new mosques funded from Turkey. A small Greek Cypriot and Maronite community remains in the Karpas and a few western villages.

Identity is layered and contested. Some Turkish Cypriots see themselves first as Cypriots and favour reunification in a federation; others emphasise ties to Turkey. Since 2004 many have taken Republic of Cyprus passports, which as EU citizens they are entitled to, and cross daily to work or shop in the south. Visitors meet a society that is welcoming, English-speaking and tired of being defined by the conflict.

The kitchen of the north is Cypriot first. Hellim (halloumi), grilled or fried, turns up at breakfast and in meze; şeftali kebab — minced meat wrapped in caul fat — is the same dish Greek Cypriots call sheftalia; fırın kebabı is kleftiko by another name. Molehiya (jute leaves), kolakas (taro) and bulgur köftesi show Levantine and Ottoman roots.

Meze is the social meal: a long table of small dishes arriving in waves — dips, pickles, salads, fried hellim, grilled meats and sometimes fish — taken slowly with rakı or beer. Coffee is Turkish, thick and served with water; tea comes in tulip glasses. The brandy sour, invented for a British-era hotel, survives in bars on both sides.

Sweets lean Ottoman: baklava, lokma, and macun — whole fruits and even green walnuts preserved in syrup. Carob, once the island's 'black gold' export, is still boiled into syrup (pekmez).

The north holds the island's finest Gothic buildings. St Sophia in Nicosia, now the Selimiye Mosque, was built between 1209 and 1326 in the style of northern French cathedrals and crowned Lusignan kings; the Ottomans added two minarets to its unfinished towers. In Famagusta, St Nicholas Cathedral, now the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, was where Lusignan kings took the crown of Jerusalem; its façade looks like Reims transported to the Levant.

Famagusta's walls, reinforced by Venice, enclose dozens of ruined churches — Armenian, Nestorian, Greek, Latin — from its trading heyday, many roofless since the Ottoman siege. Othello's Tower, the citadel, borrows its name from Shakespeare's play set partly in Cyprus. Nicosia's circular Venetian walls with eleven heart-shaped bastions are cut in two by the buffer zone.

Ottoman heritage includes the Büyük Han, a 16th-century caravanserai now full of craft shops and cafés, and the whirling-dervish lodge (Mevlevi Tekke) in North Nicosia. The British left colonial villas and harbour warehouses in Kyrenia, a courthouse style repeated across the island, and the habit of red post-box pillars.

The Kyrenia range, known in Turkish as Beşparmak (five fingers) for its jagged limestone peaks, runs along the north coast and shelters Kyrenia, Bellapais and the resort villages from the hot central plain, the Mesaoria. East of Famagusta the land narrows into the Karpas Peninsula, the wildest corner of the island, where feral donkeys roam, loggerhead and green turtles nest on Golden Beach and Alagadi, and the monastery of Apostolos Andreas sits at the tip.

Water is a constant worry: in 2015 a pipeline under the sea from Turkey began delivering fresh water, one of many ways the north depends on Ankara. The economy runs on the Turkish lira, which has lost much of its value in recent years, and on universities, tourism, casinos and construction. Rapid building along the Kyrenia coast and high inflation are daily topics.

Politically, leaders in the north have alternated between those favouring a federal reunification and those backing a two-state solution close to Ankara. The partial reopening of Varosha in 2020 and new development near Famagusta were condemned by the UN. For visitors the north is easy, English-speaking and cheaper than the south — as long as they know how they entered, where their insurance ends, and that the questions everyone avoids are the ones that matter most.