Northern Cyprus in the context of "Turkish diaspora"

Greek Cypriots (Greek: Ελληνοκύπριοι, romanized: Ellinokýprioi) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2023 census, 719,252 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 737,196 Cypriot citizens and over 77.9% of the 923,381 total residents of the area controlled by the Republic of Cyprus. These figures do not include the 29,321 citizens of Greece residing in Cyprus, ethnic Greeks recorded as citizens of other countries, or the population of illegally occupied Northern Cyprus.

The majority of Greek Cypriots are members of the Church of Cyprus, an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity. In regard to the 1960 Constitution of Cyprus, the term also includes Maronites, Armenians, and Catholics of the Latin Church ("Latins"), who were given the option of being included in either the Greek or Turkish communities and voted to join the former due to a shared religion.

Turks (Turkish: Türkler), or Turkish people, are the largest Turkic ethnic group, comprising the majority of the population of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. They generally speak the various Turkish dialects. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still exist across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Article 66 of the Constitution of Turkey defines a Turk as anyone who is a citizen of the Turkish state. While the legal use of the term Turkish as it pertains to a citizen of Turkey is different from the term's ethnic definition, the majority of the Turkish population (an estimated 70 to 75 percent) are of Turkish ethnicity. The vast majority of Turks are Sunni Muslims, with a notable minority practicing Alevism.

The ethnic Turks can therefore be distinguished by a number of cultural and regional variants, but do not function as separate ethnic groups. In particular, the culture of the Anatolian Turks in Asia Minor has underlain and influenced the Turkish nationalist ideology. Other Turkish groups include the Rumelian Turks (also referred to as Balkan Turks) historically located in the Balkans; Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus, Meskhetian Turks originally based in Meskheti, Georgia; and ethnic Turkish people across the Middle East, where they are also called Turkmen or Turkoman in the Levant (e.g. Iraqi Turkmen, Syrian Turkmen, Lebanese Turkmen, etc.). Consequently, the Turks form the largest minority group in Bulgaria, the second largest minority group in Iraq, Libya, North Macedonia, and Syria, and the third largest minority group in Kosovo. They also form substantial communities in the Western Thrace region of Greece, the Dobruja region of Romania, the Akkar region in Lebanon, as well as minority groups in other post-Ottoman Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. The mass immigration of Turks also led to them forming the largest ethnic minority group in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. There are also Turkish communities in other parts of Europe as well as in North America, Australia and the Post-Soviet states. Turks are the 13th largest ethnic group in the world.

Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, located off the coast of the Levant in West Asia. Cyprus’ capital is Nicosia, while its largest municipality is Limassol. The northeast portion of the island is governed by the self-declared, largely unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is separated from the Republic of Cyprus by the United Nations Buffer Zone. In the south of the island of Cyprus are the British sovereign military bases of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. The island is the third largest and third most populous in the Mediterranean, after Sicily and Sardinia.

Cyprus was first settled by hunter-gatherers around 13,000 years ago, with farming communities emerging by 8500 BC. The late Bronze Age saw the emergence of Alashiya, an urbanised society closely connected to the wider Mediterranean world. Cyprus experienced waves of settlement by Mycenaean Greeks at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Owing to its rich natural resources (particularly copper) and strategic position at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the island was subsequently contested and occupied by several empires, including the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians, from whom it was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Successive rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates, the French Lusignans, and the Venetians was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman dominion (1571–1878). Cyprus was placed under British administration in 1878 pursuant to the Cyprus Convention and formally annexed by the United Kingdom in 1914.

The Schengen Area (English: /ˈʃɛŋən/ SHENG-ən, Luxembourgish: [ˈʃæŋən] ) is a system of open borders that encompass 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. As an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) policy of the European Union (EU), it mostly functions as a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes. The area is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention, both signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.

Of the 27 EU member states, only two are not members of the Schengen Area. Cyprus is committed by treaty to join the system and aims to do so by 2026, although its participation has been complicated by the occupation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey since 1974. Ireland maintains an opt-out and operates its own visa policy.

An island is a landmass (smaller than a continent) that is surrounded by water. Many island countries are spread over an archipelago, as is the case with Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines—these countries consist of thousands of islands. Others consist of a single island, such as Barbados, Dominica, and Nauru; a main island and some smaller islands, such as Cuba, Iceland, and Sri Lanka; a part of an island, such as Brunei, the Dominican Republic, East Timor, and the Republic of Ireland; or one main island but also sharing borders in other islands, such as the United Kingdom (Great Britain and a part of Ireland).

The list also includes two states in free association with New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Niue, as well as two states with limited diplomatic recognition which have de facto control over territories entirely on the islands, Northern Cyprus and Taiwan. In total, 50 island countries have been included in the lists.

Turkish Cypriots or Cypriot Turks (Turkish: Kıbrıs Türkleri or Kıbrıslı Türkler; Greek: Τουρκοκύπριοι, romanized: Tourkokýprioi) are ethnic Turks originating from Cyprus. Following the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1571, about 30,000 Turkish settlers were given land once they arrived in Cyprus. Additionally, many of the island's local Christians converted to Islam during the early years of Ottoman rule. Nonetheless, the influx of mainly Muslim settlers to Cyprus continued intermittently until the end of the Ottoman period. Today, while Northern Cyprus is home to a significant part of the Turkish Cypriot population, the majority of Turkish Cypriots live abroad, forming the Turkish Cypriot diaspora. This diaspora came into existence after the Ottoman Empire transferred the control of the island to the British Empire, as many Turkish Cypriots emigrated primarily to Turkey and the United Kingdom for political and economic reasons.

Standard Turkish is the official language of Northern Cyprus. The vernacular spoken by Turkish Cypriots is Cypriot Turkish, which has been influenced by Cypriot Greek, as well as English.

There is considerable dialectal variation in Turkish.

Turkish is a member of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. Turkish is natively and historically spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace), Kosovo, Meskhetia, North Macedonia, Romania, Iraq, Syria and other areas of traditional settlement which formerly, in whole or part, belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Turkish is the official language of Turkey, the de facto country of North Cyprus and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of North Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population. Modern standard Turkish is based on the dialect of Istanbul. Nonetheless, dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and the Turkish education system since the 1930s. The terms ağız or şive are often used to refer to the different types of Turkish dialects (such as Cypriot Turkish).

The Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire refers to ethnic Turks, who are the descendants of Ottoman-Turkish settlers from Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, living outside of the modern borders of the Republic of Turkey and in the independent states which were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, they are not considered part of Turkey's modern diaspora, rather, due to living for centuries in their respective regions (and for centuries under Turkish rule), they are now considered "natives" or "locals" as they have been living in these countries prior to the independence and establishment of the modern-nation states.

Today, whilst the Turkish people form a majority in the Republic of Turkey and Northern Cyprus, they also form one of the "Two Communities" in the Republic of Cyprus, as well as significant minorities in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Levant, the Middle East and North Africa. Consequently, the Turkish ethnicity and/or language is officially recognised under the constitutional law of several states, particularly in the Balkans.

Nicosia, also known as Lefkosia or Lefkoşa, is the capital of Cyprus and the de jure capital of Northern Cyprus, which 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 island-wide intercommunal violence, and Nicosia's Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities segregated into its south and north respectively in 1964. A decade later, Turkey invaded Cyprus following Greece's successful attempt to take over the island. The leaders of the takeover would later step down, but the dividing line running through Nicosia (and the rest of the island, interrupted only briefly by British military bases) became a demilitarised zone that remains under the control of Cyprus while heavily policed by the United Nations; it is now known as the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus between the Republic of Cyprus, which is internationally recognised, and Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Turkey. The ongoing dispute between the two communities is known as the Cyprus problem.