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Melounta | |
|---|---|
village | |
| Μελούντα (Greek) Mallıdağ Turkish | |
  Melounta Location in Cyprus | |
| Coordinates: 35°19′57″N33°41′18″E / 35.33250°N 33.68833°E Coordinates: 35°19′57″N33°41′18″E / 35.33250°N 33.68833°E | |
| Country ( de jure ) |  |
| • District | Famagusta District |
| Country ( de facto ) |  |
| • District | Gazimağusa District |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
Melounta (Greek : Μελούντα, Turkish : Mallıdağ), is a village in the Famagusta District of Cyprus, located 9 km north of Lefkoniko, or Gecitkale, on the south side of the eastern Pentadaktylos mountain range. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus. Agios Nikolaos (Yamacköy) is its neighbour village, situated 500 meters to the East. Melounta is located roughly at the same distance respectively to Northern Cyprus' main cities North Nicosia, Famagusta, and Kyrenia. The vast majority of its approximately 200 inhabitants are Turkish-speaking Cypriots, considerably outnumbered by small livestock and chickens.
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning more than 3000 years of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.
Turkish, also referred to as Istanbul Turkish, is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around ten to fifteen million native speakers in Southeast Europe and sixty to sixty-five million native speakers in Western Asia. Outside Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official language, even though Turkey is not a member state.
Famagusta District is one of the six districts of Cyprus. Its main town is the island's most important port, Famagusta.
The fields to the West, South, and East of the village, are renowned for their fertility. Among others, barley, carobs, olives, and watermelons are cultivated here. Additionally, according to season, capers, wild asparagus, thyme, snails, vipers, huns, and a variety of edible berries are awaiting the collector in the immediate vicinity of Melounta.
As typical for the area, almost every home has its wine bower, its herb garden, its jasmine and bougainvillea, and its trees, predominantly lemons, figs, pomegranates, almonds, tangerines and peaches.
Melounta is currently not connected to any public transport system. It has neither pharmacy, nor filling station, school, police station or post office. Nevertheless, it features a corner shop, a carpenter's workshop, a school bus service, a mosque, as well as a children's playground and a mayoral café right at the entrance to the village. The chief means of transport in, from, and to Melounta are private automobiles and red-coloured "Massey-Ferguson" tractors.
Melounta enjoys the blessings of clean potable tap water, fresh mountain breezes, and moderate temperatures as in comparison to the nearby Mesaorian plains.
