Nicosia Webcam Live
A real-time view over Nicosia, Cyprus's capital and the last remaining divided capital city in the world, split by the Green Line since 1974. Live 24/7.
A live view over Nicosia
A live stream on YouTube broadcasts real-time views of Nicosia, giving a window onto Cyprus's capital and its historic walled old town.
Nicosia — the capital that a border still runs through
Nicosia is the last divided capital city anywhere in the world. The Green Line, a UN-patrolled buffer zone, has cut through the city since 1974, when Turkey's military intervention split Cyprus into the Republic of Cyprus in the south and the Turkish-controlled north. For over three decades civilians could not cross between the two; that changed only in 2008, when the pedestrian-only Ledra Street crossing reopened after 34 years of closure, letting people walk between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sides of the old town for the first time since the split.
The walled city they cross through predates that division by four centuries. The Venetians, who ruled Cyprus from 1489, built Nicosia's star-shaped fortifications in 1567 to defend against Ottoman attack — eleven bastions and eleven gates encircling the old town, engineered by Giulio Savorgnan and Francesco Barbaro. The defence lasted barely three years: the Ottomans took the city after a 40-day siege in 1570, converting the Gothic Cathedral of St. Sophia into the Selimiye Mosque, which still stands in the northern half of the old town today. The walls themselves survived intact, and now enclose a city literally split by the same Green Line running along their historic bastions.
What the camera shows
Nicosia
YouTube Live · NicosiaLive stream over Nicosia, Cyprus's capital, the last divided city in Europe.
Watch live →Human visitors need identification to pass through Ledra Street's checkpoint between the Greek and Turkish sides of Nicosia — but the cats that roam the old town's alleys wander freely across the Green Line, unbothered by a division that has held for half a century.
Nicosia beyond the webcam
Venetian Walls: the star-shaped 16th-century fortifications still ringing the old town, their eleven bastions split between both sides of the divided city.
Ledra Street: the pedestrian crossing point through the Green Line, reopened in 2008 after 34 years of closure.
Selimiye Mosque: a Gothic cathedral converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1570, standing in the northern half of the old town.
A city whose defensive walls failed to stop one conquest in 1570 has spent the half-century since 1974 defined by a very different kind of line — one that isn't meant to keep anyone out, but that has proven far harder to remove.
When to watch
Daylight hours: for the clearest views of Nicosia's streets and skyline before evening quiets the old town.
Getting there: Nicosia's walled old town sits at the heart of the city, with Ledra Street running through its centre toward the Green Line, Cyprus.
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