An unmixed Turkish Cypriot village in the Limassol district.
It is located 6 kilometres north-west of Limassol. It lies next to the Limassol-Platres-Troodos main road. To the south, it is linked with Kato Polemidia with which it is nearly united.
Pano and Kato Polemidia took their name from the deciduous tree polemidkia (German medlar-tree) that is seldom found in Cyprus. The fruit of this tree are called polemidkia or polemidia and are edible.
In the medieval sources there are many references to Polemidia, but no distinction is made between Pano and Kato Polemidia. The existence of a Carmelite church in Pano Polemidia, which was once a monastery, proves that Pano Polemidia belonged to the order of the Carmelites during the period of the Frankish rule.
The village is built at an altitude of 80 meters. Its altitude increased from the south to the north where it reaches 260 meters. The Garyllis river flows through the village. Pano Polemidia has an average annual rainfall of 440mm.
In the area varieties of wine and table grapes are cultivated, as well as carobs, cereals, fodder plants and a few vegetables and carbohydrates.
Stock breeding was a basic occupation of the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of the village before the Turkish invasion of 1974. Nowadays, Greek Cypriots refugees who settled in the village continue to be busy with stock breeding, but the biggest part of the economically active population is employed in Limassol. In the population census of 1881 and 1891, the inhabitants of Pano Polemidia were counted with the inhabitants of Kato Polemidia. In 1901, there were 121 inhabitants in Pano Polemidia and they increased to 154 in 1946. In the official population census of 1973 no Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of the village are mentioned on account of the unstable situation which was created after the Turkish Cypriot rebellion of 1963. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of the village were forced by their leadership to abandon their village and conveyed to the occupied areas together with other Turkish Cypriots of the free areas, in order to settle down there.
After the restoration of the Turkish Cypriot houses in the village, Greek Cypriots refugees settled down in Pano Polemidia. Later on, self-housing settlements for displaced people were created in five areas of the village on government land. In the census of 1982, Pano Polemidia had 3561 inhabitants, thus becoming the 5th biggest settlement in population of the Limassol district.
