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Turkish Cypriots are those inhabitants of Cyprus who are ethnically Turkish, as opposed to those who are of Greek (the Greek Cypriots) or other ethnicity. Within Northern Cyprus the term is sometimes used to refer explicitly to indigenous Cypriots as opposed to Anatolian Turkish migrants who have settled there in the past two decades.

History

With the Ottoman conquest, the ethnic and cultural composition of Cyprus changed drastically. Although the island had been ruled by Venetians, its population was 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, çel, 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) 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.

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 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 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 20,000 and the Turkish population around 60,000. Most historians do not 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.

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.

Nearly 10,000 Turkish Cypriots who served in the security forces against EOKA activities during 1955-1961 left the island, mostly to Britain or to Australia with their families once the 1959-1960 Cyprus Agreements were signed and former Greek Cypriot freedom fighters began assuming high-level posts in the new government.

The few years leading to 1974 the number of Turkish Cypriots on the island remained mainly constant. The number of Turkish Cypriots in 1974 was 118,000.

After the Turkish invasion in 1974 with the subsequent occupation of the north and according to Turkish-Cypriot newspapers, over one third of Turkish Cypriots emigrated from the occupied area between 1974-1995 because of the economic and social deprivation which prevails there with concurrent expulsion of the Greek population. In addition, Turkey begun to move settlers from Anatolia in the island which reached around 115.000 (2001 figures), in violation to the Geneva Conventions Protocol of 1977, which considers it a war crime. As a result the Turkish Cypriots who remain are today outnumbered by the Turkish troops together with the colonists.

• Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
• Turkish people
• Cypriot society