Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"This southeastern corner of Europe also contains the island country of Cyprus, an EU member since 2004, but one whose fractious political geography continues to cause problems for the Union. As Figure 4-14 shows, Cyprus lies closer to Turkey than it does to any part of Europe, and for more than three centuries it was ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. But today’s population of 1.2 million is predominantly Greek, the people who have been there the longest. In 1983, the 40 percent of Cyprus under Turkish control, with about 100,000 inhabitants (plus 30,000 Turkish soldiers), declared itself the independent Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Only Turkey recognizes this ministate (which today contains a population of less than 300,000), whereas the international community recognizes the government on the Greek side as legitimate. Things got even more complicated when only the Greek side of the island was admitted to the EU in 2004. Resentment was high on both the Turkish side and in Turkey itself, a reminder that Cyprus’s “Green Line” separating its Greek and Turkish communities constitutes not just a regional border but a boundary between neighboring geographic realms." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 184-5]