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The
capital of the island is Nicosia with a population of 206.200 (end
of 2001) in the sector controlled by the government of the Republic
of Cyprus.
It is situated roughly in the centre of the island and is the seat
of government as well as the main business centre. The 1974 Turkish
invasion and occupation of 38 % of the island's territory literally
cut the capital in half. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nicosia
remains the only militarily divided capital in Europe. |
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| Today
Nicosia, (Lefkosia), one of the oldest cities in our part
of the world, a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city in the
Eastern Mediterranean, rich in history and culture and combines
its historic past with the amenities of a modern city. The
heart of the city is situated within the 16th century Venetian
walls. It has a number of interesting Museums and art galleries,
Byzantine churches, medieval and neo-classical buildings.
The narrow streets retain the romantic atmosphere of the past. |
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of the charm and beauty of Nicosia is to be found in the old
city with its labyrinthine alleyways and elegant courtyard
houses. Outside the walls, the new city, with its modern facilities
is a cosmopolitan centre of a modern European capital. |
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| THE
HISTORY OF NICOSIA |
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Lefkosia
over the centuries changed many names. Ancient Ledra was
also named Lefkothea during the Ptolemaic period, Lefkousia
or Ledri during the early Christian times.Nicosia is probably
the only area in Cyprus that can boast continuous habitation
since the beginning of the Bronze Age 2500 years BC, when
the first inhabitants settled in the fertile plain of Mesaoria.
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It
is this that makes Nicosia unique among Cyprus's Bronze Age
sites, the fact that settlements in Nicosia thrived and developed,
while others ceased to exist.
During the first millennium BC, when Cyprus was divided into
City-Kingdoms, Nicosia enjoyed neither the power nor the prosperity
of other kingdoms, most of which lay on the coastline. It
became obvious that the Kingdom of Ledra was firmly under
the political will of its neighbours until the Roman times,
when Nicosia was nothing more than a small town.
It was not until the dissolution of the City-Kingdoms at the
end of the 4th century AD that Nicosia managed to exploit
its natural resources and geographical location, in the centre
of the island. |
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After
the Arab raids in the 6th century AD and the pillage that
ensued in the coastal cities, people moved to the center
of the island in the Mesaoria plain and the mountainous
areas. Nicosia had probably become the center of administration
and the island's capital in either the 9th or the 10th century,
had acquired a castle and was the seat of the Byzantine
governor of Cyprus. |
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last Byzantine governor of the Island was Isaac Komnenos who
declared himself emperor of the island and ruled the island
from 1183 –1191. The Templar Knights ruled the island
having bought it from Richard the Lionheart for 100.000 gold
byzantiums. Their seat was the castle of Nicosia. On Easter
day, 11th of April 1192 the people of Nicosia revolted and
drove the Templar knights off the city. The rebels fearing
for their return demolished the castle of the city almost
to its foundations. Guy de Lusignan, the King of Jerusalem,
bought Cyprus from the Templar Knights. He brought with him
noble men and other adventurers from France, Jerusalem, Tripoli,
Antioch and Kingdom of Armenia. Guy shared the land he had
bought among them and Nicosia became the capital off their
kingdom. The first castle was built by King Henry I in 1211.
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| When
the Venetians ruled Cyprus between 1489 –1571,
Nicosia was their administrative center and the seat
of the Venetian Governor. |
In
1567 the Venetians decided to fortify the city of Nicosia.
Julio Savorgnano, an architect and engineer arrives
on the island. Savorgnano designed new fortifications
for the city according to contemporary defence methods.
The new walls have the shape of a star with eleven bastions.
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walls have only three gates, to the North the
Kyrenia Gate, to the west the Paphos Gate and
to the east the Famagusta Gate that is the larger
and was also named Porta Julia in honour of the
architect.The new walls of Nicosia are considered
as the prototype of the renaissance military architecture. |
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On
the 1st of July 1570, the Ottomans under the command of Piale Pasha
arrived on the island and marched towards Nicosia to lay siege of
the capital. By the 9th of September the city was occupied and pillaged
by the raiding army.Nicosia became the seat of the Pasha, the Greek
Archbishop, the Dragoman and the Cadi. It was also a commercial centre,
even though the majority of its Greek and Latin inhabitants had left
it to reside in Larnaca or immigrate abroad. Nicosia revived its old
splendour around the mid-nineteenth century, when the administration
of the island became more tolerant. |
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On
5 July 1878 the administration of the island was officially
transferred to Great Britain. The Union Jack was raised in
the presence of Vice-Admiral, Lord John Gray, Commander-in-Chief
of the Channel Squadron. |
Nicosia
was initially occupied by 50 Marines and 50 Bluejackets from
his flagship, The Minotaur. On 31 July 1878, Lt. General Sir
Garnet Wolseley, the first High Commissioner, arrived in Nicosia. |
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He
immediately established a skeletal administration by sending
officers to each district to supervise the administration
of justice and obtain all possible information about the area. |
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Wolseley
immediately established a Post Office at his camp at Kykko
Metochi monastery outside Nicosia. Wolseley lived at ‘Monastery
Camp' until a prefabricated residence had been built for him
near Strovolos on the site of today's Presidential Palace.
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| At
the time of the British administration, Nicosia was still contained
entirely within its Venetian walls. Although full of private gardens
and amply supplied with water carried to public fountains in aqueducts,
the streets remained unpaved and were just wide enough for a loaded
pack animal. In 1881, macadamized roads through the town were completed
to connect with the main roads to the coastal towns. No roads were
asphalted until after World War I. The narrow streets with overhanging
kiosks were made darker by the awnings, “tourathes”, rigged
up by the shopkeepers against the sun and rain. |
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A
series of openings in the walls provided direct access to areas
beyond the walls. The first opening was cut in the Paphos Gate
in 1879.
The
most famous opening, in 1882, across a wooden bridge at the
top of Ledra Street, the Limassol or Hadjisavva opening, now
Eleftheria Square linked the city to the government offices.
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In June of the
same year, the municipal limits were extended to “a circle
drawn at a distance of five hundred yards beyond the salient
angles of the bastions of the fortifications”. In 1931
an opening was made at the Kyrenia Gate, soon after one of Nicosia's
first buses proved too high to go through the original gate.
Many more openings followed. |
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| The prosperous
1920s resulted in elegant villas lining the main roads out of
the old City alongside the colonial residences already built
there. During the post-war period the villages around Nicosia
began to expand. By 1958 they had been engulfed in suburbia.
Only Strovolos and Aglandja maintained separate physical identities,
chiefly because of intervening state-owned land. By this time,
the old city was increasingly given over to shops and workshops.
In residential terms it had become a lower income area. Old
people tended to stay in the old city, building houses for their
daughters outside the old city. |
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1960 Nicosia becomes the capital of the Republic of Cyprus,
whose constitution is based on the co-operation of the island's
two main communities, Greek and Turkish. |
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In December 1963, in the
aftermath of a constitutional crisis, skirmishes broke out between
the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots. Nicosia was divided into Greek
and Turkish quarters. The dividing line, which cuts through the city,
was named the Green line, because the pen used by the UN officer to
draw the line on the city map was green. |
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