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| native name link = | nickname = | location = Mediterranean Sea | coordinates = | archipelago = | total islands = | major islands = | area_km2 = 9251 | length_km = 100 | width_km = 240 | coastline_km = 648 | highest mount = Mount Olympus | elevation_m = 1952 | Country heading = Polities | country = Republic of Cyprus | country capital and largest city = Nicosia | country area km2 = 8997 | country 1 = Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus | country 1 capital and largest city = North Nicosia | country 1 area km2 = 3355 | country 2 = Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia | country 2 capital and largest city = Episkopi Cantonment | country 2 capital type = settlement | country 2 area km2 = 254 | population = 788,457 | population as of = 2007 | density_km2 = 85 | ethnic groups = Greek Cypriots; Turkish Cypriots; Armenian Cypriots; Maronite Cypriots }} Cyprus is an island in the Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean (after the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia) and the world's 81st largest island by area. It is located south of Asia Minor, the Anatolian peninsula of the Asian (or Eurasian) mainland (part of Turkey), so it may be included in Western Asia〔http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm#asia UN〕 or the Middle East:〔https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cy.html CIA World Factbook〕 Cyprus is close to Western Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern Africa, and has had lengthy periods of mainly Greek and intermittent Anatolian, Levantine, Byzantine, Turkish, and Western European influence. It is sometimes included in Europe,〔(Britannica )〕 and the Republic of Cyprus has been a member state of the European Union since 1 May 2004. Cyprus is 240 kilometres long and wide, with Turkey to the north. Other neighbouring territories include Syria and Lebanon to the east (105 km and , respectively), Israel to the southeast, Egypt to the south, and Greece to the west-northwest: to the small Dodecanesian island of Kastellórizo (Meyísti), to Rhodes, and to the Greek mainland. The island is dominated by two mountain ranges, the Troodos Mountains and the Kyrenia Mountains, and the central plain, the Mesaoria, between them. The Troodos Mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The narrow Kyrenia Range extends along the northern coastline. It is not as high as the Troodos Mountains, and it occupies substantially less area. The two mountain ranges run generally parallel to the Taurus Mountains on the Turkish mainland, the outlines of which are visible from northern Cyprus. Coastal lowlands, varying in width, surround the island. Geopolitically, the island is divided into four segments. The Republic of Cyprus, the internationally recognized government, occupies the southern two-thirds of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, diplomatically recognized only by Turkey, occupies the northern one-third of the island. The United Nations-controlled Green Line is a buffer zone that separates the two. Lastly, two bases under British sovereignty, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, are located in the south of the island. ==Terrain== The rugged Troodos Mountains, whose principal range stretches from Pomos Point in the northwest almost to Larnaca Bay on the east, are the single most conspicuous feature of the landscape. Intensive uplifting and folding in the formative period left the area highly fragmented, so that subordinate ranges and spurs veer off at many angles, their slopes incised by steep-sided valleys. In the southwest, the mountains descend in a series of stepped foothills to the coastal plain. While the Troodos Mountains are a massif formed of molten igneous rock, the Kyrenia Range is a narrow limestone ridge that rises suddenly from the plains. Its easternmost extension becomes a series of foothills on the Karpass Peninsula. That peninsula points toward Asia Minor, to which Cyprus belongs geologically. Even the highest peaks of the Kyrenia Range are hardly more than half the height of the great dome of the Troodos massif, Mount Olympus (),〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher = Official Website of the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Washington D.C. )〕 but their seemingly inaccessible, jagged slopes make them considerably more spectacular. British writer Lawrence Durrell, in Bitter Lemons, wrote of the Troodos as "an unlovely jumble of crags and heavyweight rocks" and of the Kyrenia Range as belonging to "the world of Gothic Europe, its lofty crags studded with crusader castles." Rich copper deposits were discovered in antiquity on the slopes of the Troodos. The massive sulfide deposits formed as a part of an ophiolite complex at a spreading center under the Mediterranean Sea which was tectonically uplifted during the Pleistocene and emplaced in its current location.〔http://www.moa.gov.cy/moa/gsd/gsd.nsf/dmlTroodos_en/dmlTroodos_en?OpenDocument Cyprus Geologic Survey〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Geography of Cyprus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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