Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean. Over the past 3000 years, this coveted piece of real estate has been fought over and occupied by a succession of civilizations. Situated between Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and blessed with one of the most pleasant climates anywhere in the world, Cyprus has been an important international trading post throughout its history. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians all took turns ruling over Cyprus, followed by Alexander the Great, as well as the Romans, the Byzantines, the Islamic empire, and even Richard the Lion-Hearted.

In its more recent history, Cyprus was ruled by the Venetians (1489), and then by the Ottoman Empire, which held it for over 300 years. The island became a Crown colony of the United Kingdom in 1925, finally achieving independence in 1960. Since then, growing agitation between the Greek and Turkish populations led to a conflict that may finally be approaching a final solution.

Cyprus is currently divided between the Turkish Cypriots, who proclaimed a separate state in 1983 in the northern third of the island (the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), and the Greek Cypriots in the southern two thirds. Ongoing contacts between representatives of the two communities are being conducted in an effort to reach a diplomatic resolution, perhaps leading in the near future to the island’s reunification as a federation of the two areas.







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