Limassol

Limassol grew up between two ancient city-kingdoms, Amathus to the east and Kourion to the west, both founded around 1100 BC. A settlement probably took shape here as Amathus declined, by around the 7th century AD, and it was known for a time as Theodosiana and Neapolis. Its decisive moment came in 1191, when Richard the Lionheart, sailing to the Third Crusade, landed at Limassol, took the Byzantine ruler Isaac Komnenos captive and seized the whole island. Richard married Berengaria of Navarre, who was crowned queen of England in Cyprus, and destroyed Amathus, moving its people to Limassol. The island passed to Guy of Lusignan, and under the medieval Kingdom of Cyprus Limassol's harbour became a centre of trade.

The Ottomans captured the city and its castle in 1538; the Venetians retook and demolished the castle, and after the Ottoman conquest of the island a new fort was completed in 1590 on its remains. Greek neighbourhoods lay mainly to the east, Turkish to the west, with a mixed area around the castle. British rule from 1878 brought a post office, a telegraph and a hospital, and then schools, theatres, clubs and sports teams.

The events of 1974 transformed the city. Its Turkish Cypriot inhabitants moved north, while Greek Cypriots displaced from the north arrived in large numbers. With Famagusta lost, Limassol's port became the Republic's main seaport, and with Famagusta and Kyrenia gone as resorts, tourism took off along its coast. The city has kept growing upwards and outwards since, with the marina opening in 2014 and seafront towers such as One Limassol, the tallest in Cyprus.

Carnival is the high point of the city's year. The ten-day Limassol Carnival, with roots traced to pagan rituals, has a satirical Carnival King at its centre and ends with a grand parade of floats and masqueraders on Makariou Avenue that draws crowds from across Cyprus. The Wine Festival of Cyprus, held since 1961 and organised by the municipality since 1978, brings the island's winemaking to the Public Gardens.

Sport has deep roots here, reaching back to the clubs founded under British rule. AEL and Apollon are the city's two largest sports clubs, with football, basketball and volleyball teams, and AEL became the first Cypriot team to win a European trophy. Limassol co-hosted EuroBasket in 2025, and its marathon set a record in 2024 with more than 17,000 runners. The PSI Foundation, opened in 2024 in an old carob warehouse, shows modern and contemporary art.

The city is also unusually international. It has drawn many Russian and other post-Soviet residents — enough to earn the nickname "Limassolgrad" — and at the 2021 census 77.7 per cent of the district's residents were Cypriot citizens. Schools teach in English, French, Greek, Russian, Ukrainian and other languages.

The municipality, the most populous in Cyprus, has about 108,000 people, and the urban area about 199,000 at the 2021 census, second only to Nicosia's. The urban area takes in the suburbs of Kato Polemidia, Mesa Geitonia, Agios Athanasios, Germasogeia and Ypsonas, and in 2024 a reform of local government reshaped the municipalities.

The city is a major centre for tourism, trade and services, and shipping is at its heart: the New Port is the largest in the Republic and one of the busiest in Mediterranean transit trade, exporting grapes, wine, carobs and citrus fruit, while the Old Port serves mainly fishing boats. Tourism runs along the coast from the Old Port to Amathus, and the presence of the British base at Akrotiri adds to local trade. Anexartisias Street and Makariou Avenue are the main shopping streets.

Weekday shopping hours still break for the middle of the day, and outside the tourist area many smaller shops close on Wednesday afternoons. Life moves outdoors in the long summer — along the Molos promenade, at the beaches, and in the old town's bars late into the evening.

The meze is the meal to have in Limassol, of meat or of fish. A meat meze starts with olives, tahini, skordalia (potato and garlic dip), taramosalata and ttalattouri, the Cypriot version of tzatziki, with bread and salad, before grilled halloumi, lountza (smoked pork tenderloin), keftedes (meatballs), sheftalia and loukaniko sausages arrive. A fish meze brings calamari, octopus, cuttlefish, red mullet and sea bass. Souvlaki — meat grilled over charcoal on skewers — is the everyday quick meal, and kleftiko is marinated meat, traditionally lamb or goat, slow-roasted; aubergines also go into moussaka.

The district's own drink is Commandaria, a sweet dessert wine and a speciality of Limassol, produced in the region for millennia and named after the Grand Commandery at Kolossi; legend has Richard the Lionheart calling it "the wine of kings and the king of wines". Cypriot brandy is drunk with meze and forms the base of the brandy sour, created on the island in the late 1930s, and zivania is the local grape spirit.

The old town around the castle and Saripolou Square has restaurants and bars in its narrow streets, including those in the old Carob Mill, while the Germasogeia tourist area offers seafront tavernas and fish meze.