Beikioi is a small Turkish community in the occupied part of the Lefkosia district. It lies 14 kilometres north-east of Lefkosia, at an elevation of 120 metres, in the Mesaoria plain, between Voni, Kythrea and Epicho.¹ In the 1960 census it had 136 inhabitants, all of them Turks.

Name

The village is recorded in the Ottoman land survey of 1832/33. The Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia writes the name “Bei Kiogiou” or “Beikiogiou” and notes that the village is not mentioned in sources older than Turkish rule.² On the land of the village the official gazetteer of Cyprus records, among others, the place-names Vounari tou Korkonti, Kamaroudia, Kannoures, Mnimata, Spilioi and Xeropotamos.³

Turkish rule

In the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, the village belonged to the district of Kythrea and is listed as Muslim, with three households holding property. The owners had fields, threshing floors, running water and ten olive trees, and no livestock.⁴

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants lived from farming and stock-breeding. They grew cereals, fodder crops and olives, and in 1973 22 stock-breeders had 159 sheep, 22 goats, 13 oxen and 28 cows.⁵

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 28 inhabitants in 1881, 46 in 1891, 58 in 1901, 43 in 1911 and 54 in 1921.⁶ In 1931 Beikioi had 78 inhabitants, all of them Muslims, and in 1946 106, of whom 5 were Orthodox and 101 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 136 inhabitants, all of them Turks, and in 1973 around 190 Turks (estimate).