After reading M. Given and M. Hadjianastasis article on the Ottoman period in area studied by the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP), I ordered a copy of Y. Sarınay’s 2000 edition of the 1831 Ottoman census of the Cyprus (Osmanlı idaresinde Kıbrıs : nüfusu-arazi dağılımı ve Türk vakıfları (Istanbul 2000)) published along side a group of related fiscal documents dated to 1833. As Given and Hadjianastasis note, the publication of these records emphasizes the divide between Muslim and non-Muslims, but this may not have been the original intention of the census.
These records identify three main communities in the immediate vicinity of Pyla-Koutsopetria: Pyla village, Dimbu (Xylotymvou), and Ormidia. Pyla was (and remains) a mixed village where Christians and Muslims lived side by side; Dimbu and Ormidia were Christian.
For Pyla, the census records 31 Muslim males and 51 non-Muslim males
For Dimbu, it records: 22 non-Muslim males.
For Ormidia: 36 non-Muslim males.
The fiscal records show that Pyla village had 16 Muslim houses and 20 non-Muslim houses and 1, 121.75 dönüm or about 103 ha (at the rate of 919.3 per dönüm). As demonstrated by Given and Hadjianastasis for the Troodos region, the number of hectare per household was low for Cyprus. For Pyla village it was 2.86 per household and that was higher than for the villages in TAESP study area. The fiscal records show that Pyla village had 12 olive trees, 1 mulberry tree, and 1 fig tree.
For Dimbu, there was 1 Muslim house and 9 non-Muslim houses with fields of 479.5 dönüm (or 44 ha) for a rather more impressive total of 4.4 ha per household. Although the single Muslim household in Dimbu recorded 75 dönüm (6.85 ha) for itself and the 9 Christian households a mere 4.1 ha. The village had 2 mandras which I am assuming are animal pens, and 10 dönüm of garden plots (bağ, bahçe), 8 olive trees, and 15 figs trees and an additional 3 dönüm of fig trees owned by a Muslim (.28 ha). It would seem that Dimbu was a rather more prosperous village than Ormidia suggesting that even in the early 19th century the rich red soils of the Kokkinochoria villages sustained impressive agricultural outputs.
For Ormidia, there was a 1 Muslim house and 10 Christian houses with 635 dönüm of land (58.3 ha) or 5.8 ha per household (there was no property recorded for the Muslim resident of Ormidia). In addition to this land, there was a single mandra or animal pen, a dönüm of market garden (bahçe), 28 olive trees, and a single fig tree.
We know that there were several large estates around Pyla village including a large çiftlik owned by the bishop of Kition/Larnaka. Judging by some recently published records of this estate, some residents of Pyla village probably earned additional income working on these church lands. The records document a wide range of jobs associated with cultivation (particularly of cotton), tending animals, and various maintenance tasks associated with the upkeep of the çiftlik. The presence of large tracks of land available, apparently, for lease in the vicinity is also confirmed by R. Hamilton Lang’s farm of 1000 acres represented about four times the entire land available to the village of Pyla itself.