Demographic
Structure
Except for a few Maronites in the Kormakiti
(Koruçam) area, at the
western end of the Kyrenia range, and several hundred Greek Cypriots in the
Karpas Peninsula, the people living in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) were Turkish Cypriots, descendants of Turks who settled in Cyprus
following the Ottoman conquest in 1571. With the Ottoman conquest, the ethnic
and cultural composition of Cyprus changed drastically. Although the island had
been ruled by Venetians, its population was mostly Greek. Turkish rule brought
an influx of settlers speaking a different language and entertaining other
cultural traditions and beliefs. In accordance with the decree of Sultan Selim
II, some 5,720 households left Turkey from the Karaman, Içel, Yozgat, Alanya,
Antalya, and Aydin regions of Anatolia and migrated to Cyprus. The Turkish
migrants were largely farmers, but some earned their livelihoods as shoemakers,
tailors, weavers, cooks, masons, tanners, jewelers, miners, and workers in other
trades. In addition, some 12,000 soldiers, 4,000 cavalrymen, and 20,000 former
soldiers and their families stayed in Cyprus.
The Ottoman Empire allowed its non-Muslim ethnic communities (or
millets, from the Arabic word for religion, millah) a degree
of autonomy if they paid their taxes and were obedient subjects. The
millet system permitted Greek Cypriots to remain in their villages and
maintain their traditional institutions. The Turkish immigrants often lived by
themselves in new settlements, but many lived in the same villages as Greek
Cypriots. For the next four centuries, the two communities lived side by side
throughout the island. Despite this physical proximity, each ethnic community
had its own culture and there was little intermingling. Both communities, for
example, considered interethnic marriage taboo, although it did sometimes occur.
Also, in spite of relations that were often cordial, there was little
possibility of serious intimacy between the two communities. In fact, according
to the American psychologist, Vamik Volkan, the two groups seemed to have a
psychological need to remain separate from each other.
Until the island came under British administration in 1878, there were only
rough estimates of Cyprus's population and its ethnic breakdown. In more recent
times, population figures became highly controversial after it was agreed that
the government established in 1960 was to be staffed at a 70-to-30 ratio of
Greek and Turkish Cypriots, although the latter made up only 18 to 20 percent of
the island's population. For this reason, the population figures were a vital
issue in the island's government, likely to affect any far-reaching political
settlements in the 1990s.
About 40,000 to 60,000 Turks lived on Cyprus in the late sixteenth century,
according to Ottoman migration figures. In the eighteenth century, the British
consul in Syria, De Vezin, believed that the Turkish population on the island
outnumbered the Greek population by a ratio of two to one. According to his
estimates, the Greek Cypriots numbered between 20,000 to 30,000 and the Turkish
population around 60,000. Not all historians accept his estimate, however. If
there was a Turkish majority, it did not last. By the time of the first British
census of the island in 1881, Greek Cypriots numbered 140,000 and Turkish
Cypriots 42,638. One reason suggested for the small number of Turkish Cypriots
was that many of them sold their property and migrated to mainland Turkey when
the island was placed under British administration according to the Cyprus
Convention of 1878.
There was a significant Turkish Cypriot exodus from the island between 1950
and 1974 when thousands left the island, mainly for Britain and Australia. The
migration had two phases. The first lasted from 1950 to 1960, when Turkish
Cypriots benefited from liberal British immigration policies as the island
gained its independence, and many Turkish Cypriots settled in London. Emigration
would have been higher in this period, had there not been pressure from the
Turkish Cypriot leadership to remain in Cyprus and participate in building the
new republic.
The second and more intense phase of Turkish Cypriot emigration began after
inter-communal strife increased in late 1963. Living conditions for Turkish
Cypriots worsened as about 25,000 of them, faced with Greek Cypriot violence,
gathered in several enclaves around the island. In addition, all Turkish
Cypriots working for the government of the Republic of Cyprus lost their civil
service positions. Aid from Turkey allowed those in the enclaves to survive, but
life at a subsistence level and the constant threat of violence caused numerous
Turkish Cypriots to leave for a better life abroad. As before, most emigrants
left for Australia and Britain, but some settled in Turkey. By 1972 the Turkish
Cypriot population had declined to around 78,000, and prospects for the
community's survival on the island looked bleak.
After the de facto partition of the island in 1974, Turkish Cypriots began to
return to Cyprus, and the decline was reversed. In addition, some 20,000 Turkish
guest workers moved to the island to revive the Turkish Cypriot economy. Many of
these workers eventually decided to remain permanently and take TRNC
citizenship. Some immigration from Turkey continued in subsequent years. Largely
as a result of this dual immigration, the Turkish Cypriot population totaled
167,256 in 1988, according to the TRNC State Planning
Organisation.
The average annual rate of population increase during the period 1978-87 was
1.3 percent. In 1987 the rate was 1.5 percent. Despite the smallness of most age
cohorts (that is those born in a particular year) born in the 1970s (a probable
reflection of the decade's turbulence), more than half the population was less
that twenty-five years of age (see fig. 6). The age-sex
distribution matched standard patterns, with males in the majority in the first
few decades, and women in the majority thereafter.
Data as of January 1991
References
- Based on information from "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,"
State Planning Organisation, Statistics and Research Department, Statistical
Yearbook, 1988, Nicosia, 1989.
- Information
from -
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cytoc.html#cy0052
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