Nicosia


Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia or Lefkoşa, is the capital of Cyprus. Its northern part is the de facto capital of Northern Cyprus.
The city is geographically located in Asia. It is the southeasternmost capital city among European Union member states.
Nicosia has been continuously inhabited for over 5,500 years and has been the capital of Cyprus since the 10th century. It is the last divided capital in Europe. Three years after Cyprus gained independence from British rule in 1960, the Bloody Christmas conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots triggered intercommunal violence, and in 1964, Nicosia's Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities segregated into the south and the north of the city, respectively. A decade later, Turkey invaded Cyprus following Greece's successful attempt to take over the island. Although the leaders of the takeover later stepped down, the dividing line running through Nicosia - and the rest of the island, interrupted only briefly by British military bases - became a demilitarised zone. It remains under the control of Cyprus while heavily policed by the United Nations. Now known as the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus, it separates the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, from Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Turkey. The ongoing dispute between the two communities is known as the Cyprus problem.
Apart from its legislative and administrative functions, Nicosia has established itself as the island's financial capital and its main international business centre. In 2018, Nicosia was the 32nd richest city in the world in relative purchasing power. In the 2022 Globalisation and World Cities ranking, Nicosia was classified as a "Beta −" city.

Names

The earliest mention of the city appears on a clay prism of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, dated to which refers to it as Lidir. The local form of the name was later variously hellenised as Ledra, Ledrae, Ledroi, and Ledron.
By late antiquity, early Christian sources were recording the location as Leuteon and as Leucon, Leucotheon, Leucoi Theoi, and Leucopolis, incorporating forms of the Greek words for "white" or "poplar" and for "God", "god", or "goddess", with possible allusion to a supposed son of Ptolemy I Soter or to the sea goddess Leucothea. During the Byzantine period, the form Leucosia usually parsed as intending "the white estate" became common; this developed into modern Greek Lefkosia and Turkish Lefkoşa.
The Latin and English name Nicosia appeared under the medieval Crusader Lusignan dynasty, around the same time the Cypriot port Limassol replaced its previous initial N with an L for similarly unknown reasons. Hill provides several other examples of interchanging /l/ and /n/ as far back as the Phoenician Cypriots, suggesting the exchange may have arisen from a variable native pronunciation. The name is also preserved as the Armenian Nikosia and the Cypriot Arabic Nikusiya.
The town also appears as Callinicesis in some of the hagiographies concerning the saints Tryphillius and Spyridon.

History

Prehistoric Nicosia

Nicosia has been continuously inhabited since around, near the beginning of the Bronze Age, when the first inhabitants settled in the fertile plain of Mesaoria.
The city-state of Ledra is similarly connected with the area of Nicosia, although the larger share of Mycenaean-era ruins in the area are at the broad hill of Ayia Paraskevi or Leondari Vounò southeast of central Nicosia. Ledra is reported as one of the twelve kingdoms of ancient Cyprus built by the Achaeans after the end of the Trojan War. The kingdom was quickly destroyed. The Cypriot vassal state transcribed as "Lidir" in a 672 BC Assyrian text is generally identified with the remains which have been found nearer to the modern city. Its ruler Onasagoras was recorded paying tribute to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon.

Ancient Nicosia

By 330 BC, Ledra was recorded to be a small unimportant town. It is thought that the settlement was economically and politically dependent on the nearby town of Chytri. The main activity of the town's inhabitants was farming. During this era, Ledra did not have the huge growth that the other Cypriot coastal towns had, which was primarily based on trade. Some sources record that it was restored and improved by Leucos, son of Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt around although Hill considered this an early modern "fancy" based solely on pseudoetymological speculations.
In the 4th century, the town was the seat of a bishopric under the name Ledron, Leuteon, or Leucotheon. Its bishop Saint Triphyllius was a student of Saint Spyridon. Archaeological evidence indicates that the town regained much of its earlier significance in the early Christian period, and the presence of two or three basilicas with opus sectile decorations, along with marbles decorated with high relief indicate the presence of a relatively prosperous and sophisticated Christian society.

Medieval Nicosia

After the destruction of Cyprus's capital, Salamis, by Arab raids in 647 — and the extensive damage to other coastal settlements — the economy of the island became more internalised and inland towns gained relative significance. Nicosia benefited from this and functioned as an outlet of agricultural products from its hinterland, the Mesaoria plain. It further was at an advantageous position due to its ample water supply. As such, the town developed enough for the Byzantine Empire to choose Nicosia as the capital of the island around 965, when the Byzantine navy restored full Byzantine control over the island and it was organised as a theme of the empire. The Byzantines moved the island's administration seat to Nicosia primarily for security reasons as coastal towns often suffered from raids. From that point on it remained as the capital of Cyprus and was the seat of the Byzantine governor of Cyprus. The last such governor was Isaac Komnenos, who declared himself emperor on the island and ruled it from 1183 to 1191. Testimony as late as 1211 indicates that Nicosia was not a walled city at that point and thus that the Byzantines did not build a city wall, thinking that the city's inland location would be sufficient for defence purposes. The Byzantines did, however, build a relatively weak fort within the city. The economy under Byzantine rule consisted mostly of the trading of agricultural goods, but the town also produced luxury items and metalware due to the presence of the imperial administration.
File:Selimiye Mosque .JPG|left|thumb|St. Sophia Cathedral, which was built during rule by the House of Lusignan and later converted into the Selimiye Mosque, exemplifies the Gothic architecture in Nicosia.
On his way to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade in 1187, Richard I of England's fleet was plagued by storms, making him stop first at Crete and then at Rhodes. Three ships continued on, one of which was carrying Joan of England, Queen of Sicily and Berengaria of Navarre, Richard's bride-to-be. Two of the ships were wrecked off Cyprus, but the ship bearing Joan and Berengaria made it safely to Limassol. Joan refused to come ashore, fearing she would be captured and held hostage by Isaac Komnenos, who hated Franks. Her ship sat at anchor for a full week before Richard arrived on 8 May. Outraged at the treatment of his sister and his future bride, Richard invaded. Richard laid siege to Nicosia, met and defeated Komnenos at Tremetousia and became ruler of the island, but sold it to the Knights Templar.
Frankish rule of Cyprus started from 1192 and lasted until 1489. During this time, Nicosia was the capital of the medieval Kingdom of Cyprus, the seat of Lusignan kings, the Latin Church and the Frankish administration of the island. During Frankish rule, the walls of the city were built along with many other palaces and buildings, including the gothic Cathedral of Saint Sophia. The tombs of the Lusignan kings can be found there.
In 1373/1374, Nicosia was occupied and ravaged by the Republic of Genoa and in 1426 by the Mamluk Sultanate.
In 1489, when Cyprus came under the rule of the Republic of Venice, Nicosia became their administrative centre and the seat of the republic. The Venetian governors saw it as a necessity for all the cities of Cyprus to be fortified due to the Ottoman threat. In 1567 Venetians built new fortifications in Nicosia —which are well-preserved to this day— demolishing the old walls built by the Franks as well as other important buildings of the Frankish era including the King's Palace, other private palaces and churches and monasteries of both Orthodox and Latin Christians. The new walls took the shape of a star with eleven bastions. The design of the bastion is more suitable for artillery and a better control for the defenders. The walls have three gates, to the north Kyrenia Gate, to the west Paphos Gate and to the east Famagusta Gate. The river Pedieos used to flow through the Venetian walled city. In 1567 it was diverted outside onto the newly built moat for strategic reasons, due to the expected Ottoman attack.

Ottoman rule

On 1 July 1570, the city came under the rule of the Ottomans. On 22 July, Piali Pasha, having captured Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca, marched his army towards Nicosia and laid siege to the city. The city lasted 40 days under siege until its fall on 9 September 1570. The story of the Cypriot martyr Arnaude de Rocas dates from the fall of Nicosia. Some 20,000 residents died during the siege and every church, public building, and palace was looted. Nicosia had an estimated population of 21,000 before the Ottoman conquest, and based on the Ottoman census data of 1572, the population had been reduced to 1,100–1,200. The devastation of the city was so extensive that for a few years after the conquest, a number of villages on the island had a larger population than Nicosia. The main Latin churches were converted into mosques, such as the conversion of the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.
Nicosia was the seat of the pasha, the Greek archbishop, the dragoman and the qadi. The Palazzo del Governo of Venetian times became the seat of the pasha, the governor of Cyprus, and the building was renamed as the konak or seraglio. The square outside was known as Seraglio Square or Sarayonu, as it is known to the present day. The saray was demolished in 1904 and the present block of government offices built on the site.
When the newly settled Turkish population arrived, they generally lived in the north of the old riverbed. Greek Cypriots remained concentrated in the south, where the Archbishopric of the Orthodox Church was built. Other ethnic minority groups such as the Armenians and Latins came to be settled near the western entry into the city at Paphos Gate.
The names of the 12 quarters into which Nicosia was originally divided at the time of the Ottoman Conquest are said to be derived from the 12 generals in command of divisions of the Ottoman army at the time. Each general being posted to a quarter, that quarter was known by his name as follows:
  1. General Ibrahim Pasha.
  2. General Mahmoud Pasha.
  3. General Ak Kavuk Pasha.
  4. General Koukoud Effendi.
  5. General Arab Ahmed Pasha.
  6. General Abdi Pasha, known as Chavush from which rank he was probably promoted.
  7. General Haydar Pasha.
  8. General Karamanzade.
  9. General Yahya Pasha.
  10. General Daniel Pasha.
  11. Tophane
  12. Nebetkhane, meaning police station or quarters of the patrol.
The names of the generals in command of the last two-quarters are not known:
Later the number of neighbourhoods was increased to 24. Each neighbourhood was organised around a mosque or a church, where mainly the respective Muslim and Christian communities lived.