Cyprus (Gr. ; Turk. Kylrib), a Turkish island, the most eastern of the Mediterranean, lying between lat. 34° 29' 18" and 35° 41' 42" N, and lon. 32° 17' and 34° 35' 30" E. From Cape St. Andrea, its extreme eastern point, to the nearest point of the coast of Syria, is about 65 m., and to Latakia about 68 m.; on the north it approaches within about 44 m. of the coast of Asia Minor. Length about 140 m.; breadth for nearly 100 m. W. to E. about 40 m., thence to the N. E. extremity about 15m.; area, 3,678 sq. m.; pop. (which under the Venetians amounted to 1,000,000) estimated at about 200,000, of whom two thirds are Greeks, and the rest Moslems, Maronites, Armenians, Roman Catholics, and Jews. It is intersected from E. to W. by a range of mountains, called Olympus by the ancients, whose principal peak, Oros Stavros, is 6,595 ft. in height. It often suffers from drought, its largest stream, the Pedia (the Pediaeus of the ancients), being sometimes entirely dry. The inhabitants must then depend mostly upon cisterns, as the wells are nearly all brackish. Aromatic herbs of all kinds grow spontaneously. Cotton, wine, tobacco, silk, and fruits, all of fine quality, are produced. Several dyewoods and drugs also grow on the island.

The minerals are numerous, including the precious metals and copper, and many precious stones, but the mines are neglected. The wines of Cyprus, especially those from the vineyard called the Comman-deria, from having belonged to the knights of Malta, enjoyed great celebrity in former times, and the production exceeded 2,000,000 gallons, but has now dwindled down to less than 200,-000. Two common qualities of Cyprus wines, black and red, with a strong taste of tar from being kept in tarred casks, are exported to Egypt, but never to Europe. Larnaka, where the European consuls and the principal foreign merchants reside, and Limasol (anc. Amathus) are the chief commercial emporiums of the island. Famagusta (on the site of ancient Arsi-noe), so famous under the Venetians, possesses an excellent spacious port, sheltered from all winds, which could easily be deepened to accommodate hundreds of large ships; but at present it is so choked up with filth that it can only hold about a dozen small craft. Locusts commit great ravages in the island, but in spite of this evil, and of the abuses in assessing and collecting the taxes, the prosperity of Cyprus is on the whole increasing.

Many of the oppressions have been removed; the peasants are freely permitted to sell their produce, and agricultural employment is abundant. The wheat and oats are inferior, and the annual grain crop is small. Colocynth is extensively cultivated. The cotton crop in 1857 amounted to about 2,700 bales. During the American civil war it reached over 8,000 bales, but has since fallen off. Madder root forms a principal production, the greater part being exported to France, and the rest retained for home consumption. The abolition in 1835 of the monopoly on carob beans (ceratonia siliqua) rapidly increased their production. In 1852 the exports of carobs amounted to 1,350 tons, and in 1857 cargoes were for the first time exported to England. In 1864 the exports of them amounted to 7,087 tons, valued at about $175,-000, and they have since increased. British and American manufactures are imported from Syria, Smyrna, and Constantinople; hides, coffee, sugar, cloth, fowling pieces, fine powder, small shot, salt fish, and Swedish iron, from France; glass, steel, German iron, nails, paper, etc, from Trieste and other Austrian ports.

The island forms a part of the vilayet of the islands of the Mediterranean (Jezairi Bahri Sefid). Capital, Nicosia (Turk. Lefkosha). The archbishop of Cyprus resides at Nicosia, but his title is metropolitan of Constantia (Famagusta). By the council of Ephesus, in 431, his independence of any patriarch was declared, and he still retains it. Thus the church of Cyprus, which has, besides the metropolitan, five suffragan bishoprics, is considered one of the independent groups into which the Greek church is divided. For the Catholics of the Latin communion, who do not exceed 1,000, there is a bishop at Famagusta; and there is also a Maronite bishopric of Cyprus. - The island of Cyprus occupies a distinguished place both in sacred and profane history. It early belonged to the Phoenicians of the neighboring coast. It was afterward colonized by Greeks, who founded there several independent kingdoms, and passed successively under the power of the Pharaohs, Persians, Ptolemies, and Romans, excepting a short period of independence under Evagoras, in the 4th century B. C. It was one of the chief seats of the worship of Venus, hence called Cypria. Salamis, Citium (whence the Biblical name of the island, Kittim), Amathus, Paphos, Soli, etc, were the most remarkable ancient cities.

At the time of the crusades it was detached from the Greek empire, and made a kingdom for Guy of Lusignan. From his descendants it fell to the Venetians, and in 1570 -'71 was subdued by the Turks after a brave defence. From 1832 to 1840 it was governed by the viceroy of Egypt. Recently the interest of the public in the history and antiquities of Cyprus has been excited by the discoveries made by Gen. Cesnola, the American consul at that island. (See Cesnola.) The decipherment of the Cypriote inscriptions was attempted by De Luynes and Roth on a supposed identification of the words Salamis and Amathus. The recent discovery by Lang of a bilingual inscription in Phoenician and Cypriote proved it to be a wrong basis. The labors of Hesychius, Birch, George Smith, and of Brandis, whose discoveries were published in 1873 by Curtius, have shown that the language of the Cypriote inscriptions is a Greek dialect, approaching the Arcadian, but possessing many peculiarities. The writing, which is not Greek, but of unknown origin, is usually from right to left and syllabic.

Some of the characters represent, however, different forms of the vowels, and others consonants only. .