{"id":239930,"date":"2016-03-11T05:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=9facf6bb4ddb12159a7572bbba6793a5"},"modified":"2016-03-11T05:05:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T09:05:00","slug":"cyprus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=239930","title":{"rendered":"Cyprus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\nThe third largest island in the Mediterranean, Cyprus is about 240 km long and 100 km wide. It is located on the Anatolian plate and therefore belongs geologically to Asia, but politically it is a member of the EU.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Troodos mountains dominate the centre of the island and include Mount Olympus, the country\u2019s highest mountain at 1952 m.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlong the northern coast, the smaller Kyrenia Range rises suddenly from the plains.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe capital and largest city, Nicosia, sits between the two mountain ranges. Since 1974 the island has been split between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations, with the line of separation running through the city.\n<\/p>\n

\nEast of Nicosia lies the Mesaoria plain, which is the agricultural heartland of the island \u2013 but depends greatly on winter rainfall and irrigation, limiting its production. High summer temperatures further exacerbate the situation. Thousands of years ago the area was covered by thick forest, but most of this was cut down to provide wood for the Ptolemaic dynasty\u2019s navy in the 1st century BC. Today, much of the plain is covered by hard-packed calcium carbonate.\n<\/p>\n

\nAt the southernmost area of Cyprus we can see the Limassol Salt Lake, the largest inland body of water on the island. Covering over 10 sq km, the lake is an important stopover for birds migrating between Africa and Europe, with greater flamingos spending the winter months there.\n<\/p>\n

\nFurther up the coast to the east is the seasonal Larnaca Salt Lake, which also sees flamingos.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis image \u2013 also featured on the Earth from Space video programme<\/a> \u2013 comprises two scans from the Sentinel-2A satellite on the same day: 22 December 2015. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nThe third largest island in the Mediterranean, Cyprus is about 240 km long and 100 km wide. It is located on the Anatolian plate and therefore belongs geologically to Asia, but politically it is a member of the EU.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Troodos mountains dominate the centre of the island and include Mount Olympus, the country’s highest mountain at 1952 m.\n<\/p>\n

\nAlong the northern coast, the smaller Kyrenia Range rises suddenly from the plains.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe capital and largest city, Nicosia, sits between the two mountain ranges. Since 1974 the island has been split between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations, with the line of separation running through the city.\n<\/p>\n

\nEast of Nicosia lies the Mesaoria plain, which is the agricultural heartland of the island – but depends greatly on winter rainfall and irrigation, limiting its production. High summer temperatures further exacerbate the situation. Thousands of years ago the area was covered by thick forest, but most of this was cut down to provide wood for the Ptolemaic dynasty’s navy in the 1st century BC. Today, much of the plain is covered by hard-packed calcium carbonate.\n<\/p>\n

\nAt the southernmost area of Cyprus we can see the Limassol Salt Lake, the largest inland body of water on the island. Covering over 10 sq km, the lake is an important stopover for birds migrating between Africa and Europe, with greater flamingos spending the winter months there.\n<\/p>\n

\nFurther up the coast to the east is the seasonal Larnaca Salt Lake, which also sees flamingos.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis image – also featured on the Earth from Space video programme<\/a> – comprises two scans from the Sentinel-2A satellite on the same day: 22 December 2015. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239931,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239930\/revisions\/239931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}