People of Cyprus

People of Cyprus - Cyprus Usefull Information - Green Paradise North Cyprus Estates

The history of Cyprus shows that until recently the island has consistently been occupied by outside powers, usually those with maritime aspirations. Whichever civilizations controlled the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus was their natural choice as a strategic base for military and naval operations, as well as for commerce. Too small to protect herself, she was repeatedly colonized: by the Mycenaeans, the lonians, the Phoenicians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the crusading Lusignans, the Venetians, the Turks and, last, the British. As the earliest colonists rarely held the whole island, but concentrated on making strong settlements, there is a long history of internal dissension promoted by the struggle of the underdog against those in authority. The Romans, Byzantines, Lusignans and Venetians did not intermarry to any appreciable extent with the inhabitants neither did the British, nor indeed the Turks, though from the sixteenth century onwards the latter brought in colonists and settled them on the land and in villages and usually well defined quarters of the towns. It is from these settlers that the present Turkish minority springs. The remainder, except for very small numbers of Armenians, Syrian Maronites, English and Americans, are Greek speaking, Greek thinking and live very much according to the present day way of life in Greece.

The total figure of population varies according to emigration, as well as with the influx or departure of U.K., NATO and U.N. servicemen, who are counted in the census. But a rough simplification would be that the population of 622,000 (1968) consists of four-fifths Greek Cypriots and one fifth Turkish allowing, if you will, 2 per cent for minorities. Though some villages and areas are almost completely Turkish in population (the most obvious example of this being the old walled city of Famagusta), there have always been some localities where the two communities live and work together. It seems a pity to an outside observer that the national flag of Cyprus, 'of neutral design and colour' as stipulated in the agreement of 1959 which formed the basis of the constitution, should be uninspired and uninspiring as are most compromises with the result that the blue and white stripes of Greece and the crescent and star of Turkey are all too frequently displayed in conscious rivalry. The 1959 agreement provided that the Turkish and Greek communities should both have the right to fly their flags on holidays. Of the towns, Nicosia has the greatest number of inhabitants, followed by Limassol, Famagusta, Larnaca, Ktima (Paphos) and Kyrenia, in that order. Now, after 1974 Turkish Cypriots has North part of island and Greek Cypriots has south part of Cyprus island.

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