Aloda (or Aloa) is a small Turkish community in the occupied part of the Ammochostos district. It lies 14 kilometres north-west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 20 metres, in the Mesaoria region. In the 1960 census it had 42 inhabitants, of whom 41 were Turks and one a Greek.

Name

The official gazetteer of Cyprus writes “Aloda”, while the 1931 census writes the village “Aloa”.¹ On the village’s land the Gazetteer records, among others, the place-names Agios Pappos, Asprogia, Krines and Palloura.²

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Aloda is a Muslim village of the district of the Mesaoria, with 10 households holding property. Their cultivated fields were mainly cotton fields, and the rest barren; no trees are recorded. They had about 190 sheep, a few cows and oxen, and beehives.³

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the villagers grew mainly wheat, barley and oats, and kept sheep and goats: in 1973 the village had 528 sheep, 149 goats and 13 cows.⁴

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 34 inhabitants in 1881 and 65 in 1911.⁵ In 1931 Aloda had 57 inhabitants, 9 Christians and 48 Muslims, and in 1946 78, of whom 5 were Orthodox and 73 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 42 inhabitants, 41 Turks and one Greek, and in 1973 about 50 Turks (estimate).