No-Man's Land: 8 DMZs Around the World

Where: Running east-west across the island of Cyprus, roughly dividing it into northern and southern halves.

Size: 112 miles long, up to 4.6 miles wide

Why It Exists: The island of Cyprus has a mixed population of ethnic Greeks and Turks. When the government was toppled in 1974 by a pro-Greek coup, there were fears that the new government would seek unification with Greece, against the wishes of Turkish Cypriots. The Turks invaded and the island was effectively split in two, with Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south, separated by a U.N. buffer zone.

What It's Like Now: While there are some 10,000 people living in the zone, much of it is deserted and has been reclaimed by nature. An estimated 300 mouflon (a kind of wild sheep with curved horns) roam freely in the only place on the island where hunters cannot touch them. The Green Line, then, is a good example of what scientists call an "involuntary park"?a place that humans abandoned or where the human population diminished for other reasons, such as to create a DMZ, leaving a void where flora and fauna could thrive without human interference.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/no-mans-land-8-dmzs-around-the-world?src=rss

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