Rauf Raif Denktaş (27 January 1924 – 13 January 2012) was a Turkish Cypriot politician, barrister and jurist who served as the founding president of Northern Cyprus. He occupied this position as the president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus between the declaration of the de facto state by Denktaş in 1983 and 2005, as the president of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus between 1975 and 1983 and as the president of the Autonomous Turkish Cypriot Administration between 1974 and 1975. He was also elected in 1973 as the vice-president of the Republic of Cyprus.

Denktaşs favourite pastimes included photography and writing. His photographs have been exhibited in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, some of the former republics of the Soviet Union, Poland, France, Austria and Turkey. He has written about fifty books in English and Turkish. Between the years 1949 and 1957 he wrote many articles for the newspaper Halkın Sesi (Voice of the People), published by Fazıl Küçük, the first Vice President of the Republic of Cyprus.Denktaş has been the recipient of many awards and honorary doctorates given by various universities in Turkey, Northern Cyprus and the United States. He was married to Aydın Denktaş (1933–2019) for 63 years and had three sons and three daughters. He lost a daughter at the age of three, one son, Raif in a traffic accident and another son in a tonsillectomy. His surviving son Serdar Denktaş is also a politician, and as of 2019, leader of the Turkish Cypriot Democratic Party