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Athienou is a village situated in the Larnaca district, twenty kilometers southeast of the capital city of Nicosia. Athienou is one of the four villages which are currently situated in the buffer zone. The origin of the name is obscure, but some villagers believe that the name derives from Athena. The municipality’s website claims that the name Athienou may also derive from the word “atta” or “aththa" which means “large stone” in Greek. Others suggest that Athienou could be the corruption of a Lusignan name “Etienne.” According to the latter scenario, villagers who lived in the vicinity of a house owned by Etienne may have referred to his house as "Etienne's Place" (in Greek: “
stou etiennou”), which phrase gradually came to refer to the whole village, and which eventually became Athienou (www.athienou.org.cy). On the other hand, during their rule, the Ottomans called the village Kiracıköy, meaning “the village of muleteers.” It is known that, until the 1960s, the villagers were involved in the activity of muleteering. The name Kiracıköy was still in use until 1974.
As can be seen in the above chart, the village has always been predominantly inhabited by Christians (Greek Cypriots). Throughout the British period, the Greek Cypriot population of the village increased significantly, rising from 1,359 in 1891 to 3,416 in 1960.
Displacement:
There was no displacement during the emergency years of the late 1950s, nor during the intercommunal strife of the 1960s. The first conflict-related displacement took place in 1974 when the Turkish army occupied the village. The army later withdrew, and the villagers went back to their village after 1975.
Current Inhabitants:
Currently the village is mainly inhabited by its original Greek Cypriot villagers and Greek Cypriot refugees. The Athienou Modern Housing Project, a refugee housing development, opened its 39 units between 1979 and 1982. The total number of refugees residing in this housing development was 125 in 1982. The last Cypriot census of 2001 put the village’s total population at 4,261.
