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Cyprus Island – Some General Information

The Cyprus Island is located in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. The word Cyprus is meant copper in English language. The island is named this way because there are many large deposits of copper are seen in this island.  In 1960 Cyprus became independent from the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Greece reserves certain political rights to intervene in the internal affairs of Cyprus Island.

Although there are two political groups active in this island: one is the “Turkish Cypriots” having alliance with Turkey opposing the rules of acting government body, are more active on the northern part of the island. They captured this part through a military invasion occurred in 1974, and the second is the acting government ruling party.

Even economically, the island is divided into two zones. The economy of Cypriot (Greek) is prosperous, but is susceptible to external interventions. As in the year 1990 an erratic growth rates was observed in reflection of the swinging nature of the economy, because of instable and economic dwindling political conditions in the western part of Europe.

On the other hand the other political group faced problems like arranging for foreign investments the structure of economy is highly dependent on government related services and agriculture together completes only the half portion of employment. Direct and indirect aid and subsidy is provided by Turkey to tourism, education, industrial segment to compensate for this intervention. Greek is the native language, spoken in the south and the language Turkish is spoken in the north region. Music in Cyprus has a spicy variety of folk, classical, and popular genres; it is quite popular. Dancing is a favorite pass time for the islanders.

As Cyprus was a prominent place of Christian religion and European culture from the time the Crusades, a variety of styles, including music from Greece, France, Armenia, and Arabian countries, got mingled with the culture of the island.