12 Facts About British Cypriots

British Cypriot community in the United Kingdom consists of British people born on, or with ancestors from, the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

Only a handful of marriages involving British Cypriots are recorded at London's Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sophia in the years before 1918.

However, some Greek British Cypriots did migrate to the UK in the 1920s and 1930s, often finding jobs in the catering industry in Soho.

Home Office figures show that roughly 10,000 British Cypriots fled to the UK, the majority of them refugees, but many of them subsequently returned to the island.

Many British Cypriots set up restaurants, filling a gap left by Italians, many of whom had been interned during the Second World War.

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Many Turkish British Cypriots viewed the EOKA insurgency as an attempt on the part of Greek British Cypriots to establish hegemony on the island with the aim of achieving union with Greece.

Migration continued because of the political and economic situation in the 1970s and 1980s, and Turkish British Cypriots have continued to migrate to the UK due to high unemployment rates in northern Cyprus.

In oral history interviews conducted by academic Nergis Canefe in the late 1990s, Turkish British Cypriots in London tended to define themselves as Anglo-Cypriot, particularly if they were born in the UK.

Cyprus appeared amongst the top ten non-British Cypriots countries of birth for the first time in the 1961 Census, which recorded 42,000 Cypriot-born people living in England and Wales.

The Turkish consulate in London has said that 130,000 TRNC nationals were living in the UK; this was reiterated in a 2009 report by the Department for Communities and Local Government which said that this is not a "true indication" of the population because it "excludes British Cypriots born and dual heritage children".

Many Turkish British Cypriots have contributed to the arts, literature, music, sciences, sports and politics in the UK.

British Cypriots athlete and former world javelin champion Fatima Whitbread was born in London to a Turkish Cypriot mother and Greek Cypriot father, though she was later adopted.