Editing Kyrenia (section)

===Ottoman rule===
[[File:Cyprus, Illustration for La Terre-Sainte et les lieux illustrés par les apôtres, by Adrien Egron, 1837 (36).jpg|thumb|right|An illustration of Kyrenia in 1837]]
Under [[Cyprus under the Ottoman Empire|Ottoman rule]], Kyrenia district was at first one of four, then one of six, administrative districts of the island and the town remained its administrative capital. The town's fortunes declined however as it was transformed into a garrison town. The Christian population was expelled from the fortified city, and no one was allowed to reside within the castle other than the artillerymen and their families. These men coerced the town's inhabitants and those of the surrounding villages, Christian and Muslim alike, with their arbitrary looting and crimes. The few local inhabitants who dared to stay were merchants and fishermen whose livelihood depended on the sea. They built their homes outside the city wall, which through time, neglect and disrepair, turned to ruin. The rest of the inhabitants moved further out to the area known as Pano Kyrenia or the 'Riatiko' (so called because it once belonged to a king) or fled further inland and to the mountain villages of [[Thermeia]], [[Karakoumi]], [[Kazafani]], [[Bellapais]] and Karmi.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://kyrenia.edu.tr/?page_id=2055|title=University of Kyrenia – Girne Üniversitesi {{!}} About Kyrenia|publisher=University of Kyrenia – Girne Üniversitesi|language=it-IT|access-date=8 April 2016|archive-date=27 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170127021015/http://kyrenia.edu.tr/?page_id=2055|url-status=dead}}</ref>
[[File:Ottoman cemetery Kyrenia.jpg|thumb|Ottoman cemetery, dome and graves]]
The town revived again when bribes and gifts paid to local Turkish officials caused them to permit local maritime trade with Asia Minor and the Aegean islands to resume. In 1783, the church of Chrysopolitissa was renovated. Then in 1856, following the [[Hatt-i Humayun of 1856|Hatt-i Humayun]], which introduced social and political reform and greater religious freedom for the various peoples of the Ottoman Empire, the church of Archangel Michael was rebuilt on a rocky mount overlooking the sea. At about this time, many of the Christian inhabitants of the surrounding villages re-established themselves in the town. Local agriculture and maritime trade, particularly the export of carobs to Asia Minor, allowed the people of Kyrenia to have a comfortable living, and some even to educate their children and pursue other cultural activities.
[[File:Ağa Cafer Paşa Mosque, Kyrenia, TRNC.jpg|thumb|Ağa Cafer Pasha Mosque is a historical Ottoman-era mosque located in the center of Kyrenia.]]
According to the 1831 census, which counted only male inhabitants, Muslims made up 52% of the population. By 1881, three years into the British administration of the island, Muslims and Christians in the town were still almost equal in numbers; the census for 1881 records the town's population as 570 Muslims and 594 Christians. However, a significant Muslim emigration from the town to Anatolia took place between 1881 and 1931, reducing the Muslim population ratio to only 36% in 1901, 32.5% in 1911, 30% in 1921, and 24% in 1931. One explanation for this exodus may be the general anxiety that prevailed among the island's Muslim population during the Balkan and First World wars, when the Ottomans fought against Greece in the former and Britain in the latter. Proclamation of the island as a British colony in 1924 caused further Turkish Cypriot emigration to Anatolia, symptomatic of the weak bond the Cypriot Turkish population had with the town. The Turkish Cypriot population proportion continued to decrease until 1960 when it reached 20%.<ref name=prio/>