Cyprus (Gr. Kypros, Turk. G'br's, Fr. Chypre, Ital. Cipro) is situated in the north-east of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, S. of Asia Minor, and W. of Syria, between 34° 30' and 35° 41' N. lat., and 32° 15' and 34° 36' E. long. The distance from Cape St Andreas, the north-easternmost point of the island, to the mainland of Syria near Latakia is about 52 geographical miles, while Cape Kormakiti on the north of the island is only 35 miles from Cape Anamúr in Cilicia. Larnaca is nearly 1000 miles east of Malta, and little over 200 from Port Said and the entrance to the Suez Canal, while Limassol is somewhat nearer to both. The familiar shape of the island was likened by the ancient Greeks to that of a deer's skin, of which the long and narrow peninsula of Carpas represented the tail. The extreme length is about 140 miles, of which 40 consist of this Carpas peninsula; the extreme breadth is 60 miles; and the area is 3707 sq. m., or a little larger than Norfolk and Suffolk together. There are two principal ranges of mountains which form the most remarkable natural feature of the country. The northern range extends from Cape St Andreas, at the extreme east of the island, almost as far as Cape Kormakiti, some 20 miles to the west of Kyrenia. The highest mountains of this range, Buffavento (3240 feet), St Hilarion (3340), and Pentedaktylon (2480), are situated almost immediately north of Nicosia, and appear, owing to the extreme clearness of the atmosphere, to rise almost from the outskirts of the town, from which they are distant fully 12 miles. To the south of this range, and extending from Salamis to Morfu Bay, is the great Messaorian plain, once famous for its crops of cereals. Of late years, owing to the abandonment of irrigation-works, the decay of wells, and the absence of any system of water storage, its fertility has greatly fallen off, and in 1887, owing to a deficient rainfall, there was a scarcity almost amounting to famine. The western range occupies the greater part of the western and south-western districts of Cyprus, and extends to the east as far as the isolated peak of Santa Croce or Stavrovouni, only 12 miles to the west of Larnaca. The highest mountain of this range is Mount Troödos (6352 feet), of which one of the peaks bears the classic name of Olympus.
On the slopes of Troödos, under gigantic pine-trees, is pitched the camp where troops from Limassol spend a part of the summer months under canvas, and where the brigade of guards recruited their strength in the autumn of 1885 after their sufferings in Egypt. Cyprus has practically no harbours; Larnaca and Limassol, the chief seaport towns, are open roadsteads, unprotected against all but northerly winds, with such shallow water that steamers are obliged to anchor at a considerable distance from the shore. Moreover, a dangerous surf is raised in stormy weather which renders landing difficult. At Kyrenia there is a little harbour fit only for small craft, and unprotected in northerly winds; and in days gone by there were harbours at Salamis, at Papho, and Famagusta.
The restoration of the last would greatly increase the strategic value as well as the commercial importance of Cyprus, but so far nothing has been done.
The rivers only flow after heavy rain or the melting of the snow in the hills. There are no lakes of any importance save that of Paralimni near Famagusta, which is noteworthy chiefly on account of the fact that whereas it becomes entirely dry in summer, it abounds in fish during the winter, a phenomenon which has never been explained, but which certainly cannot be called in question. The chief towns are Nicosia (the capital), Larnaca, and Limassol. Famagusta is a ruin; Papho, a site; Kyrenia and Morfu, villages on the northern coast. Until 1885 the topography of Cyprus was by no means accurately known, a state of things now put an end to by the issue of the great map of the trigonometrical survey of the island. This map, which was published in 1885, has been engraved by Messrs Stanford on a scale of one inch to the statute mile.
A census taken by order of government in 1891 showed the population to be 209,291, of whom more than three-fourths profess the Orthodox or Greek religion, the remainder being Mohammedans. Dividing the population according to language, 140,000 speak as their mother-tongue a form of the Romaic or modern Greek, and 46,000 the Turkish. The Cypriote Greek dialect is a poor as well as a corrupt idiom, neither expressive nor harmonious. The language of the Cypriote Moslems, on the contrary, is remarkably pure, and is said to be the best Turkish spoken out of Stamboul.
History.—Cyprus was colonised at a very early period by the Phoenicians and subsequently by the Greeks, who gave to the island the name Kypros, and substituted the worship of Aphrodite (the Cyprian goddess, 'Paphian Venus'), to whom Cyprus was considered sacred, for that of the Phœnician Ashtaroth or Astarte. The ancient Cypriote syllabary was derived, according to Sayce, from the writing of the Hittites (q.v.). Early in the 6th century B.C. Cyprus was conquered by the Egyptian king Amasis; and a little later by Cambyses, who annexed it to Persia, 525 B.C. After the battle of Issus, Cyprus became a part of the Macedonian empire, but on the death of Alexander it passed into the possession of the Egyptian Ptolemy. In 58 B.C. Cyprus became a Roman province, and was administered by Cato the Younger and Cicero. The Cypriotes were one of the first Gentile peoples to embrace Christianity, and Cyprus was visited not only by St Paul but by many saints of the early church. At the division of the empire Cyprus naturally passed into the hands of the Eastern or Byzantine emperors, to whom it continued subject for over seven hundred years. In consequence of the supposed discovery by a shepherd of the body of St Matthew and part of his gospel near Salamis, in the 4th century, Cyprus was constituted by the empire a separate autonomous church, and to the archbishop was accorded the privilege, enjoyed only by the emperor himself, of signing his name in red ink, a privilege which has been uninterrupted exercised to the present day. In 646 Cyprus was taken by the Saracens, under Othman, and again in 802 by Haroun al Rashid; but on each occasion it remained but a very short period under the sway of the Moslem. In 1195 Richard I., on his way to Syria for the third crusade, took the island from Isaac Comnenus, the representative or duke of the eastern emperor, and gave it to Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, in whose family the sovereignty of the island remained until 1487, when it passed under the dominion of the republic of Venice. In 1570 the Turks under Selim II. invaded Cyprus, and after long sieges and terrible massacres at
Famagusta and Nicosia, took possession of the country and ruled it for three hundred years. On the 10th July 1878 Cyprus was occupied by the British, under the provision of the celebrated Turkish Convention, by the terms of which the island is to be occupied by Great Britain until Batoum, Kars, and Erzeroum are restored to Turkey by Russia, England paying £92,440 a year to the Porte as quit rent. By a subsequent arrangement this 'tribute' is paid by Cyprus to England, and England pays one-half to France, or rather to the French bond-holders of the 1854 Turkish Loan. The surplus revenue of Cyprus did not till 1892 reach £92,000; the deficit is made up by an annual grant by parliament. In 1880 the administration of Cyprus was transferred from the Foreign to the Colonial Office, and in 1882 a constitution, with a (partly elected) council, &c., was granted to Cyprus.
Although under the convention the English maintain the Mohammedan religious tribunals, an admirable judicial system has lately been introduced, and English barrister-judges preside over courts which are highly appreciated by the people. The fiscal system, however, is well-nigh unreformed, and is most unsatisfactory, as is the system of land tenures. The Eastern Telegraph Company have stations throughout the island, the cable connecting with Alexandria and Syria. Postal communication with England is slow and unsatisfactory; within the island it is efficient. The police, 215 horse and 460 foot, under English officers, is an admirable force. Half a regiment of English infantry is quartered at Polymedia camp, 4 miles north of Limassol. There is no artillery in the island. The Cypriotes are peaceable, orderly, and easily ruled. Englishmen, almost exclusively officials, are popular. There are three high schools, over 200 Christian elementary schools, and 120 Moslem schools.
Cyprus produces wheat, barley, cotton, silk, flax, tobacco, carobs, madder, wool, gypsum, oranges, pomegranates, sponges, gum-mastic, and immense quantities of wine. Carobs, or locust beans, are perhaps the most important export; the annual value being from £75,000 to £105,000. Next in importance comes wine, of which some 3,500,000 gallons, worth, say, £200,000, is annually produced (as well as 200,000 gallons of spirits), and £66,000 exported; next cotton, about £28,000. The export of wheat varies from a value of £10,000 to over £30,000, though the amount grown in the country is of the value of over £200,000. Barley is grown in very large quantities for home consumption, both as grain for horses and cattle, and as spring fodder, in a green state in place of grass, of which none grows in the island. The export of madder has entirely ceased since the adoption of aniline dyes. Wool and silk (cocoons) are each exported to the extent of about £8000 a year, but a good deal of both is spun and woven in the country. The total value of all exports in 1890-95 varied from £470,000 to £550,000; but only £60,000 worth of produce was shipped to Great Britain in consequence of the want of good communication.
Cyprus was once celebrated for its copper-mines, which were worked by the Phœnicians and Romans; indeed the word copper is derived from the name of the island. At the present day a concession granted to Messrs Knowles and Foster to mine copper at Limni, in the extreme west of Cyprus, is being worked by a company. Gypsum or plaster of Paris is manufactured at Larnaca in large quantities and exported chiefly to Alexandria. Salt was produced, under the Turks, to the value of £40,000 a year, by evaporation at the salines, near Larnaca, whence that town is sometimes called Salinas. At present, owing to prohibitive duties in the neighbouring countries, no salt is exported and only a very small amount for island consumption is made by the British authorities. Cyprus imports (to the value of from £240,000 to £350,000) wheat, barley, olive-oil, sugar, textile fabrics, iron and copper goods, rice, dried fish, coal, timber, cotton-yarn and piece-goods, tobacco, petroleum, and goats.
The revenue varies from £175,000 to £220,000, of which about a sixth is produced by customs, and a little less by excise, while of the remainder, part is derived from land-tax, but by much the greater portion from the tithe on produce, an oppressive, antiquated, and expensive form of taxation. The tithe on grapes was abolished in 1884. The expenditure in the island, curtailed from year to year since the occupation, amounts now to from £105,000 to £120,000, leaving a considerable surplus to be sent to England for the 'tribute.' The climate of Cyprus has been unduly vilified. When the English troops landed in the hot autumn of 1878 they were encamped in malarious situations and kept without appropriate shelter, food, or occupation, and it is true that most of them sickened and that many died. But for people who live regular lives and take reasonable precautions, the climate of Cyprus is not only healthy but very pleasant. The death-rate is low. Ophthalmia and intermittent fever of a mild type are the commonest forms of disease. Throat, chest, and lung complaints are exceedingly rare, but leprosy is not uncommon. The people are healthy and well grown; the men, as a rule, handsome, the women rarely so.
The flora and fauna are with few exceptions the same as those of the neighbouring coasts of Syria and Asia Minor. Among wild animals the moufflon or Cyprus sheep is the most interesting, but is becoming very scarce. Mules of peculiar excellence are bred in Cyprus and command large prices. Goats are amongst the pests of the island. The forests (for which Cyprus was once famous) have well-nigh disappeared, and the climate and fertility of the country have greatly suffered in consequence. Nothing is being done to re-afforest the island, and the flocks of goats prevent any natural growth of trees on the mountains, by biting off the tops of the young shoots as fast as they appear. A still greater scourge has commanded the attention of the authorities, and the locusts are now almost exterminated. The work of destruction has been thoroughly as well as economically performed (especially 1880-84), upon a system invented by a Cyprus gentleman, Mr Richard Mattei, C.M.G.
Since the English occupation something has been done for the roads (till then few and bad), and a little for re-afforesting the hills and restoring the timber supplies. In 1897 a railway connecting Nicosia, Larnaca, and Limassol was being laid, and both the English government and the local administration made large grants for irrigation and drainage of swamps. A company was trying to revive silk-culture (once very famous, as good Cyprus cocoons are the best known) and to improve agriculture.
See works on Cyprus by Cesnola (1877), J. Thomson, Lang, Hepworth Dixon, Sir S. Baker, Mrs Scott Stevenson, Miss Agnes Smith, W. H. Mallock (1889), and Mrs Lewis (1894); Macheras, Chronique de Chypre (Paris, 1891); vol. iii. of Perrot and Chipiez, History of Ancient Art (trans. 1885); M. O. Richter, Cyprus, the Bible, and Homer (1894); and pamphlets and articles in the magazines by Professor Geddes in 1897.