Akrotiri and Dhekelia are two areas on the island of ► Cyprus that comprise the Sovereign Base Areas Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. The bases were retained by the UK following the transition of Cyprus' status from a colony in the British Empire to an independent Commonwealth republic within the Commonwealth of Nations. The United Kingdom retained the bases arising from the strategic location of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.
This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Akrotiri and Dhekelia, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
When Cyprus becomes independent the British Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia stay under British jurisdiction and remain British sovereign territory. See Atlas of Cyprus for maps.
Notes and references
General remarks:
The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.
Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections.
Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries.
The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.
The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.