History
Timeline of Cyprus History
At the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Cyprus was taken and retaken for ten millennia. Every ruler left something behind — in the architecture, the food and the language.
Cyprus is a small island carrying an unreasonable amount of history. Ten thousand years of it, at the meeting point of three continents — and almost none of it was ever swept away.
Every empire that took the island left something in the architecture, the food, the language and the calendar. What follows is the island explaining itself: where the dialect came from, why halloumi does not melt, what the flag was designed to avoid, and which wild sheep lives only here.
Six ways into the island.
History
Ten thousand years at the crossroads of three continents.
4 stories
Culture & Traditions
What Cypriots keep, celebrate and pass on.
8 stories
Food Heritage
The island on a plate — and in a cup.
9 stories
Language
A dialect that still carries Ancient Greek inside it.
1 story
Nature & Symbols
The creatures and emblems Cyprus calls its own.
2 stories
Interesting Facts
The things that surprise people about Cyprus.
1 story
Where to start if you are starting anywhere.
History
At the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Cyprus was taken and retaken for ten millennia. Every ruler left something behind — in the architecture, the food and the language.
Food Heritage
Made by shepherds from sheep and goat’s milk to survive the island’s heat, halloumi is now protected by EU law and eaten from Nicosia to Sydney.
Nature & Symbols
A wild sheep found nowhere else on earth, hunted almost to extinction and protected since 1930. Seeing one takes patience and luck.
History
Adopted on 16 August 1960, the flag shows the island itself above two olive branches — deliberately using neither Greek blue nor Turkish red.
4 stories
At the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Cyprus was taken and retaken for ten millennia. Every ruler left something behind — in the architecture, the food and the language.
Adopted on 16 August 1960, the flag shows the island itself above two olive branches — deliberately using neither Greek blue nor Turkish red.
The Church of Cyprus won its independence in 431 AD and has shaped the island ever since — alongside Islam, the Maronites, and a widening range of communities.
Gifted to Cleopatra, lace bought by Leonardo, the only foreign venue for an English royal wedding, and the world's oldest perfume — found under earthquake rubble.
8 stories
The Church of Cyprus won its independence in 431 AD and has shaped the island ever since — alongside Islam, the Maronites, and a widening range of communities.
A red-and-white thread worn through March, an egg cracked against another on Easter Sunday, a coin baked into the New Year cake — the Cypriot calendar is kept in small acts.
Three of the island's five best-known dances exist nowhere else — and two of them are performed while balancing something that can break.
Before anyone spoke, the clothing had already said it: which village, what age, married or not, and how the family was doing.
Ground fine, brought slowly to the boil in a briki and served in a small cup with cold water beside it — recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
Minced pork, onion and parsley wrapped in caul fat instead of a casing — the fat melts on the grill and bastes the meat as it cooks. A charcoal-grill staple beside souvla and souvlaki.
Coarse-cut pork cured with dry red wine, coriander seed and pepper, then smoked over vine cuttings — the village sausage that turns up beside the halloumi at every souvla.
Fist-sized cuts of pork, lamb or chicken, threaded onto a long spit and turned over charcoal for the best part of two hours — Cyprus’s great communal barbecue, and the reason Sunday smells the way it does.
9 stories
Lamb sealed in a clay oven for hours until it slips off the bone, with potatoes cooked in its juices — a dish whose name goes back to mountain outlaws, and now part of Cyprus’ cultural heritage.
Grown in the iron-red earth of the Kokkinochoria and celebrated with a giant roadside statue, the Cypriot potato is a humble crop the island is genuinely proud of.
The long, glossy sweets you see hanging on strings at harvest time are soutzoukos — grape must and whole almonds, and one of the most distinctive tastes of the Cypriot countryside.
Made by shepherds from sheep and goat’s milk to survive the island’s heat, halloumi is now protected by EU law and eaten from Nicosia to Sydney.
A red-and-white thread worn through March, an egg cracked against another on Easter Sunday, a coin baked into the New Year cake — the Cypriot calendar is kept in small acts.
Ground fine, brought slowly to the boil in a briki and served in a small cup with cold water beside it — recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
Minced pork, onion and parsley wrapped in caul fat instead of a casing — the fat melts on the grill and bastes the meat as it cooks. A charcoal-grill staple beside souvla and souvlaki.
Coarse-cut pork cured with dry red wine, coriander seed and pepper, then smoked over vine cuttings — the village sausage that turns up beside the halloumi at every souvla.
Fist-sized cuts of pork, lamb or chicken, threaded onto a long spit and turned over charcoal for the best part of two hours — Cyprus’s great communal barbecue, and the reason Sunday smells the way it does.
1 story
Spoken by more than seven hundred thousand people on the island, the Greek Cypriot dialect keeps features of Ancient Greek that standard Greek has long since lost.
2 stories
A wild sheep found nowhere else on earth, hunted almost to extinction and protected since 1930. Seeing one takes patience and luck.
Adopted on 16 August 1960, the flag shows the island itself above two olive branches — deliberately using neither Greek blue nor Turkish red.
1 story
Gifted to Cleopatra, lace bought by Leonardo, the only foreign venue for an English royal wedding, and the world's oldest perfume — found under earthquake rubble.