How big Cyprus is, with comparisons

When people picture a Mediterranean island, many imagine something the size of Malta, and Cyprus is nothing like that. It’s a big island, with two mountain ranges, a plain in the middle and towns spread right round the coast. To go with the Cyprus travel guide, here are the official figures for its size, how that area is divided and what to compare it with so you get a feel for it before you plan.

9,253 km², the third largest island in the Mediterranean

The Spanish foreign ministry gives the island an area of 9,253 km², the same figure the EU publishes using Eurostat data. CYSTAT and the Sovereign Base Areas Administration give 9,251 km², two fewer. I use the first because both European sources agree on it. Only two Mediterranean islands are bigger, says the Spanish foreign ministry, and Cyprus ranks third for population too.

End to end, CYSTAT makes it 240 km long and 100 km wide. None of the official sources I use gives a length for the coastline, so I won’t quote one. Where each end lies is clear on the map of Cyprus.

How big is each part?

This is where the size gets complicated. The Spanish foreign ministry puts the area the Republic’s government hasn’t controlled since 1974 at 3,355 km². The House of Representatives expresses it as 37% of the territory, and CYSTAT as 35.2%. All three refer to the same area, and I’d go with the ministry’s square kilometres.

Then come the British bases at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Their own Administration gives 98 square miles, around 3% of the island. Other official sources give different figures, and I prefer the one from the body that runs them. Between north and south lies the UN strip, roughly 180 km from end to end, though nobody officially publishes how much ground it covers.

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Is Cyprus big or small?

It depends what you compare it with, and this guide gives you some handy yardsticks. Cyprus is about 29 times the size of the Maltese islands, which cover 316 km², about 20 times Andorra, at 468 km², and about 58 times Liechtenstein, at 160 km². If you’ve been to Malta, think of it this way, what you’d see there in two or three days needs a week here.

The terrain makes it feel bigger still. The Troodos take up the south-western half, rising to 1,953 m on Olympus according to CYSTAT, and no river flows all year, says the Spanish foreign ministry. Where all that sits in the wider Mediterranean is in where is Cyprus.

Two ranges and a plain

What really shapes the island is its relief. Two ranges with a plain between them, is how the Spanish foreign ministry puts it. To the north, the Pentadaktylos range runs parallel to the coast, and between the two ranges opens the Mesaoria plain, home to Nicosia. In the north-east, the Karpas peninsula stretches the island out like a finger pointing towards Syria. On a map it looks small; on the ground, with mountain roads up into the Troodos, it feels much bigger.

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What the size means for your holiday

At 240 km from end to end and with no railway, everything is done by road, on the left, which at least feels familiar. The south-coast towns from Paphos to Larnaca are linked by motorway, but climbing to the mountain villages takes time, about an hour from the Limassol coast. So on a short break I’d pick one half of the island rather than try to see the lot.

And if you’re wondering how many people share all that space, density in the south comes to 106 people per km² by the Spanish foreign ministry’s count, and the full figures by district and town are in the population of Cyprus. The best of every corner, from the coast to the Troodos, is in the most beautiful places in Cyprus. Other striking figures about the island are collected in my facts about Cyprus.

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