Copper’s Latin name still remembers this divided Mediterranean island
Cyprus, third-largest and third-most populous Mediterranean island, sits off the Levant as a West Asian republic split by a UN buffer between the internationally recognized south and a northern entity. Hunter-gatherers arrived about 13,000 years ago; farmers by 8500 BCE; Bronze Age Alashiya traded widely before Greek and later Ottoman layers.
Nicosia is the capital and biggest city. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, north of the UN line, is recognised only by Turkey, and Britain keeps two sovereign military bases, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, in the south. Copper and a location where Europe, Africa and Asia meet made the island a prize. Mycenaean Greeks arrived at the end of the second millennium BC, and Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians each ruled before Alexander the Great took it in 333 BC. Ptolemies, Romans and Byzantines, Arab caliphates, the Lusignans and Venice followed, then the Ottomans from 1571 to 1878 before British administration.
Greek Cypriots wanted enosis, union with Greece, which Athens adopted as policy in the 1950s. Turkish Cypriots first preferred British rule and then pressed for taksim, partition with a Turkish north. After nationalist violence the island became independent in 1960. Fighting in 1963 and 1964 pushed over 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves and ended their political representation. On 15 July 1974 Greek Cypriot nationalists and officers of the Greek junta staged a coup, and Turkey invaded five days later.
Today the republic is a high-income democracy with very high human development, and its climate and mixed Greek and Turkish heritage draw many tourists. It belongs to the Commonwealth, was a founding Non-Aligned member until joining the EU in 2004, adopted the euro in 2008 and in 2024 said it intends to join NATO.
The oldest written form of the name is ku-pi-ri-jo, meaning Cypriot, in fifteenth-century BC Linear B. Suggested origins include Greek words for the cypress and the henna tree, or an Eteocypriot copper word perhaps linked to Sumerian zubar or kubar. Latin aes Cyprium, Cyprian metal, shortened to cuprum, gave copper its name.
Source: Cyprus
