About Paphos
Paphos is a coastal city in the southwest of Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today at Kouklia, and New Paphos.
The current city of Paphos lies on the Mediterranean coast, about 50 km (30 mi) west of Limassol (the biggest port on the island), which has an A6 highway connection. Paphos International Airport is the country's second-largest airport. The city has a subtropical-Mediterranean climate, with the mildest temperatures on the island.
Paphos is included in the official UNESCO list of cultural and natural treasures of the world's heritage for its spectacular ancient remains, and was selected as a European Capital of Culture for 2017, along with Aarhus.
In the founding myth, even the town's name is linked to the goddess, as the eponymous Paphos was the son (or, in Ovid, daughter) of Pygmalion whose ivory cult image of Aphrodite was brought to life by the goddess as "milk-white" Galatea.
The author of Bibliotheke, the Hellenistic encyclopedia of myth long attributed to Apollodorus, gives the genealogy.[6] Pygmalion was so devoted to the cult of Aphrodite that he removed the statue to his palace and kept it on his couch. The daimon of the goddess entered into the statue, and the living Galatea bore Pygmalion a son, Paphos, and a daughter, Metharme. Cinyras, perhaps the son of Paphus, but perhaps the successful suitor of Metharme, founded the city under the patronage of Aphrodite and built the great temple to the goddess there. According to another legend preserved by Strabo (xi. p. 505), whose text, however, varies, it was founded by the Amazons.
Today Paphos, with a population of about 32,754 (as of 2011), is a popular tourist resort, home to an attractive fishing harbour. Ktima is the main residential district while Kato Paphos, by the sea, is built around the medieval port and contains most of the luxury hotels and the entertainment infrastructure of the city.