1884 Perron map LIMASSOL & AKROTIRI PENINSULA, CYPRUS, #120 |
Nice small map titled Limassol et la peninsule d'Akrotiri, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression. Overall size approx. 16 x 16 cm, image size approx. 9.5 x 7 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron.
Limassol
Greek Lemesós, Turkish Limasol, city and chief
port of the Republic of Cyprus. The city lies on Akrotiri Bay, on
the southern coast, southwest of Nicosia; it is the island's
second largest city and is also its chief tourist centre.
Limassol's rise from a humble market town between the ancient
settlements of Amathus and Curium took place at the end of the
Byzantine Empire, when Richard I the Lion-Heart landed there in
1191 and was married to Berengaria of Navarre in the chapel of a
castle fortress, now a regional museum and one of only two
surviving buildings of the period. After the Genoese seizure of
Famagusta in 1372, the port's fortunes increased; but damage from
numerous incursions between 1414 and 1426, the Turkish invasion
of 1570, and a disastrous earthquake had reduced its population
to 150 by 1815. Its resurgence dates from the end of the 19th
century, when the island came under British administration.
Limassol's harbour facilities, which were extended in the 1960s
to improve its shallow-water location, were increased by a new
port (operational in 1974) that was able to provide berthing
spaces for large vessels. The Turkish intervention (1974) in
northern Cyprus and the closing of the island's main port at
Famagusta made Limassol the chief port of the Republic of Cyprus.
The port has also taken over much of the trade that once passed
through Beirut. In the 1970s and '80s Limassol also became home
to many thousands of prosperous Arab refugees from Lebanon and
immigrants from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Limassol's bustling port
exports wines, beverages, fruits, and vegetables. Bricks, tiles,
shoes, textiles, furniture, cement, buttons, and soft drinks are
manufactured; fruit is canned; and chrome and asbestos are
processed. Legumes, vegetables, oranges, lemons, grapefruits,
nuts, and apples are grown on the adjacent coastal plain, and
goats and cattle are raised as well. The Troodos Mountains lie
inland from the plain. Limassol city is linked by roads with Moni,
Akrotíri, and Episkopi. Pop. (1982) city, 74,782; (1989 est.)
metropolitan area, 120,000.
Akrotiri
British military enclave in south-central Cyprus that was
retained as a “sovereign base area” by the United Kingdom
under the London Agreement of 1959 granting the independence of
Cyprus. Located southwest of Limassol, the enclave comprises
Akrotiri Peninsula, the southernmost part of the island, and a
small coastal area north of Episkopi Bay. The enclave has a
hospital, a weather station, and an airfield. Akrotiri and Dhekélia
sovereign base to the northeast (together totaling 99 square
miles [256 square km]) are used as British training facilities
and staging areas between Britain and southern Asia and the Far
East. They are also support areas for United Nations forces on
Cyprus. In the late 1970s, controversy arose in Cyprus over the
reported use of Akrotiri by the United States as a station for
monitoring Soviet activities.