A thousand incidental circumstances--a thousand caprices--may have deranged what may be called the natural or geographical order, and have caused the historical order to diverge from it; but, on the whole, probably something like the geographical order was observed; and, at any rate, it will be most convenient, in default of sufficient data for an historical arrangement, to adopt in the present place a geographic one, and, beginning with those nearest to Phoenicia itself in the Eastern Mediterranean, to proceed westward to the Straits of Gibraltar, reserving for the last those outside the Straits on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
The nearest, and probably the first, region to attract Phoenician colonies was the island of Cyprus.

Cyprus lies in the corner of the Eastern Mediterranean formed by the projection of Asia Minor from the Syrian shore.

Its mountain chains run parallel with Taurus, and it is to Asia Minor that it presents its longer flank, while to Phoenicia it presents merely one of its extremities.

Its length from east to west is 145 miles, its greatest width about sixty miles.[53] Two strongly marked mountain ranges form its most salient features, the one running close along the north coast from Cape Kormaciti to Cape S.Andreas; the other nearly central, but nearer the south, beginning at Cape Renaouti in the west and terminating at Cape Greco.

The mountain ranges are connected by a tract of high ground towards the centre, and separated by two broad plains,[54] towards the east and west.