Census puts northern Cyprus population at 264,172

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Cyprus government trashes the results

The initial results of the census conducted in northern Cyprus on April 30 were announced on Friday, showing a sharp rise in the population by 31.7% from 200,587 in the last census in 1996 to 264,172 in 2006, or an annual average growth rate of around 3.2% per year.

The census was conducted on a face-to-face basis, with interviewers visiting each household under strict curfew conditions.

Prime minister of the unrecognised Turkish republic of northern Cyprus, Ferdi Sabit Soyer, said that the highest population rise was in Girne (Kyrenia), at 58.1%, where the figures increased to 62,192 from 38,715. Soyer also said that there had been rapid shift in the population towards the towns, especially Lefkosa (Nicosia) and Girne (Kyrenia).

The full results will be available in the next six months.

Population is contentious

Population numbers are a contentious issue in Cyprus, since they influence how palatable various proposals for power-sharing will be for either community. No mutually accepted census has taken place since the division of the island.

On the one hand, Turkey pursued a settlement policy in the 1970s and 1980s in order to push up the numbers of Turkish-speakers on the island.

The first wave of settlers, right after the invasion in 1974, is said to be better integrated than the second wave of mainly subsistence farmers from Anatolia, who came in the early 1980s. There has also been economic migration since, of both registered and unregistered workers, as well as an influx of students into the booming universities. In addition, there is, of course, the 35,000 Turkish troops.

On the other hand, when counting the population in the north, the (Greek Cypriot) Republic of Cyprus counts all people who have landed in Cyprus from any port or airport in the north as an illegal immigrant, in contrast to Turkish Cypriots born in Cyprus, who are counted as Republic of Cyprus citizens.

Some Greek Cypriot politicians have called for all people born in Turkey and all their descendants to be counted as illegal immigrants, regardless of whether or not the parent is married to a Turkish Cypriot.

The difference in interpretation of who belongs here or not results in wildly different figures for population numbers, of only around 88,000 according to Greek Cypriot estimates and over 260,000 according to the recent census.

We understand that Greek Cypriot estimates for population are based on the known population in 1974 and then increased by population growth in the south in intervening years plus an adjustment for emigration.

However, research by Mete Hatay of the PRIO Cyprus Centre, based on censuses in the main targets for emigration–UK, Australia, US, Canada, Turkey–also suggest that Greek Cypriots have over-estimated the amount of emigration in northern Cyprus.

Cyprus government trashes the results

Not surprisingly given the hige gap in perceptions, the results were immediately trashed by the Greek Cypriot side.

Cypriot Undersecretary to the President Christodoulos Pashiardis said that the census was “insignificant and unreliable,” adding that “the census itself was an act of convenience and had ulterior motives.”

Pashiardis said that even in if the results of the 1996 census were correct, “the percentage of the increase of the population in the occupied areas is unprecedented and impressive, a fact that confirms the general conviction that the recent census included the number of the illegal settlers which undoubtedly exceeds the number of the legal Turkish Cypriots.”

Details on the origins of the population in the north will only be known when the full results come out.

Fiona Mullen