Syrian Arab Republic | |
|---|---|
 Flag (de facto)  Coat of arms (de facto) | |
| Anthem: حُمَاةَ الدَّيَّارِ Ḥumāt ad-Diyār "Guardians of the Homeland" | |
 Controlled territory shown in dark green; Syria's claims over most of Turkey's Hatay Province and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shown in light green  | |
| Status | UN member state under a transitional government |
| Capital and largest city | Damascus 33°30′N 36°18′E / 33.500°N 36.300°E |
| Major languages | Arabic |
| Minor languages | Kurdish (Kurmanji) Syrian Turkish Neo-Aramaic (Turoyo) Other |
| Ethnic groups (2021) | 80–90% Arabs 9–10% Kurds 1–10% others |
| Religion (2024) |
|
| Demonym(s) | Syrian |
| Government | Transitional government |
| Ahmed al-Sharaa | |
• Prime Minister | Mohammed al-Bashir |
| Legislature | Interim Legislative Council |
| Establishment | |
• Arab Kingdom of Syria | 8 March 1920 |
• State of Syria under French mandate | 1 December 1924 |
• First Syrian Republic | 14 May 1930 |
• End of the French mandate | 17 April 1946 |
• Part of the United Arab Republic | 22 February 1958 – 28 September 1961 |
• Beginning of Ba'athist rule | 8 March 1963 |
• Ba'athist regime overthrown and transitional government established | 8 December 2024 |
| Area | |
• Total | 185,180 km2 (71,500 sq mi) (87th) |
• Water (%) | 1.1 |
| Population | |
• 2023 estimate |  23,227,014 (57th) |
• Density | 118.3/km2 (306.4/sq mi) (70th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2021 estimate |
• Total | $50.28 billion |
• Per capita | $3,300 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2022 estimate |
• Total | $9.8 billion |
• Per capita | $800 |
| Gini (2022) |  26.6low inequality |
| HDI (2022) |  0.557medium (157th) |
| Currency | Syrian pound (SYP) |
| Time zone | UTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time) |
| Drives on | Right |
| Calling code | +963 |
| ISO 3166 code | SY |
| Internet TLD | .sy سوريا. |
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. It is a republic under a transitional government and comprises 14 governorates. Damascus is the capital and largest city. With a population of 25 million across an area of 185,180 square kilometres (71,500 sq mi), it is the 57th-most populous and 87th-largest country.
The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region, broadly synonymous with the Levant and known in Arabic as ash-Sham. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Damascus and Aleppo are cities of great cultural significance. Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital for the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the French Mandate. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence.
The post-independence period was tumultuous, with multiple coup attempts in the country between 1949 and 1971. In 1958, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt, which was terminated in a 1961 coup d'état. The 1963 coup d'état carried out by the military committee of the Ba'ath Party established a one-party state, which ran Syria under martial law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending constitutional protections for citizens. Internal power-struggles within Ba'athist factions caused further coups in 1966 and 1970, the latter of which saw Hafez al-Assad come to power. Under Assad, Syria became a hereditary dictatorship, with power consolidated around his family. Assad died in 2000, and he was succeeded by his son, Bashar.
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, Syria has been embroiled in a multi-sided civil war with the involvement of several countries, leading to a refugee crisis in which more than 6 million refugees were displaced from the country.[excessive citations] In response to rapid territorial gains made by the Islamic State during the civil war in 2014 and 2015, several countries intervened on behalf of various factions opposing it, leading to its territorial defeat in 2017 in both central and eastern Syria. Thereafter, three political entities – the Syrian Interim Government, Syrian Salvation Government, and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria – emerged in Syrian territory to challenge Assad's rule. In late 2024, a series of offensives from a coalition of opposition forces led to the capture of Damascus and the fall of Assad's regime.
A country of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups. Arabs are the largest ethnic group, and Sunni Muslims are the largest religious group. Up until the capture of Damascus by rebel forces, it was the only country governed by neo-Ba'athists. The neo-Ba'athist government was a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family, and attracted widespread condemnation for its severe domestic repression and war crimes. Prior to the fall of Assad, Syria was ranked fourth-worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, and it was one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Freedom of the press was extremely limited, and the country was ranked second-worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. It was the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked the second-worst globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. Syria had also become the epicentre of an Assad-sponsored Captagon industry, exporting billions of dollars worth of the illicit drug annually, making it one of the largest narco-states in the world.
Etymology
Several sources indicate that the name Syria is derived from the 8th century BC Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι, Sýrioi, or Σύροι, Sýroi, both of which originally derived from Aššūr (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and north-eastern Syria). However, from the Seleucid Empire (323–150 BC), this term was also applied to the Levant, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favors the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, ultimately derived from the Akkadian Aššur. The Greek name appears to correspond to Phoenician ʾšr "Assur", ʾšrym "Assyrians", recorded in the 8th century BC Çineköy inscription.
The area designated by the word has changed over time. Classically, Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, between Arabia to the south and Asia Minor to the north, stretching inland to include parts of Iraq, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene.
By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire (but politically independent from each other): Judaea, later renamed Palaestina in AD 135 (the region corresponding to modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan) in the extreme southwest; Phoenice (established in 194) corresponding to modern Lebanon, Damascus and Homs regions; Coele-Syria (or "Hollow Syria") and south of the Eleutheris river.
History
Ancient antiquity
The Natufian culture was the first to become sedentary around the 11th millennium BC and became one of the centers of Neolithic culture (known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A), where agriculture and cattle breeding first began to appear. The site of Tell Qaramel has several round stone towers dated to 10650 BC, making them the oldest structures of this kind in the world. The Neolithic period (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B) is represented by rectangular houses of Mureybet culture. At the time, people used containers made of stone, gyps, and burnt lime (Vaisselle blanche). The discovery of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade. The ancient cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only that of Mesopotamia.
The earliest recorded indigenous civilization in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, northern Syria. Ebla appears to have been founded around 3500 BC and gradually built its fortune through trade with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Assyria, and Akkad, as well as with the Hurrian and Hattian peoples to the northwest, in Asia Minor. Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is a trading agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c. 2300 BC. This is known as the Treaty between Ebla and Abarsal. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages after Akkadian. Recent classifications of the Eblaite language have shown that it was an East Semitic language, closely related to the Akkadian language. Ebla was weakened by a long war with Mari, and the whole of Syria became part of the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire after Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin's conquests ended Eblan domination over Syria in the first half of the 23rd century BC.
By the 21st century BC, Hurrians settled in the northern east parts of Syria while the rest of the region was dominated by the Amorites. Syria was called the Land of the Amurru (Amorites) by their Assyro-Babylonian neighbors. The Northwest Semitic Amorite language is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages. Mari reemerged during this period until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia. Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages and developed the Ugaritic alphabet, considered to be the world's earliest known alphabet. The Ugaritic kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC in what was known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Aleppo and Damascus are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.Yamhad (modern Aleppo) dominated northern Syria for two centuries, although eastern Syria was occupied in the 19th and 18th centuries BC by the Old Assyrian Empire ruled by the Amorite dynasty of Shamshi-Adad I, and by the Babylonian Empire which was founded by Amorites. Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh,Qatna, the Hurrians states, and the Euphrates valley down to the borders with Babylon. The army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam (modern Iran). Yamhad was conquered and destroyed, along with Ebla, by the Hittites from Asia Minor circa 1600 BC. From this time, Syria became a battle ground for various foreign empires, these being the Hittite Empire, Mitanni Empire, Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, and to a lesser degree Babylonia. The Egyptians initially occupied much of the south, while the Hittites and the Mitanni occupied much of the north. However, Assyria eventually gained the upper hand, destroying the Mitanni Empire and annexing huge swathes of territory previously held by the Hittites and Babylon.
Around the 14th century BC, various Semitic people appeared in the area, such as the semi-nomadic Suteans who came into an unsuccessful conflict with Babylonia to the east, and the West Semitic speaking Arameans who subsumed the earlier Amorites. They too were subjugated by Assyria and the Hittites for centuries. The Egyptians fought the Hittites for control over western Syria; the fighting reached its zenith in 1274 BC with the Battle of Kadesh. The west remained part of the Hittite empire until its destruction c. 1200 BC, while eastern Syria largely became part of the Middle Assyrian Empire, who also annexed much of the west during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I 1114–1076 BC. With the destruction of the Hittites and the decline of Assyria in the late 11th century BC, the Aramean tribes gained control of much of the interior, founding states such as Bit Bahiani, Aram-Damascus, Hamath, Aram-Rehob, Aram-Naharaim, and Luhuti. From this point, the region became known as Aramea or Aram. There was also a synthesis between the Semitic Arameans and the remnants of the Indo-European Hittites, with the founding of a number of Syro-Hittite states centered in north central Aram (Syria) and south central Asia Minor (modern Turkey), including Palistin, Carchemish and Sam'al.
A Canaanite group known as the Phoenicians came to dominate the coasts of Syria, (and also Lebanon and northern Palestine) from the 13th century BC, founding city states such as Amrit, Simyra, Arwad, Paltos, Ramitha, and Shuksi. From these coastal regions, they eventually spread their influence throughout the Mediterranean, including building colonies in Malta, Sicily, the Iberian peninsula, and the coasts of North Africa and most significantly, founding the major city-state of Carthage in the 9th century BC, which was much later to become the center of a major empire, rivaling the Roman Republic.
Syria and the western half of Near East then fell to the vast Neo Assyrian Empire (911 BC – 605 BC). The Assyrians introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of their empire. This language was to remain dominant in Syria and the entire Near East until after the Islamic conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, and was to be a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. The Assyrians named their colonies of Syria and Lebanon Eber-Nari. Assyrian domination ended after the Assyrians greatly weakened themselves in a series of brutal internal civil wars, followed by attacks from: the Medes, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians. During the fall of Assyria, the Scythians ravaged and plundered much of Syria. The last stand of the Assyrian army was at Carchemish in northern Syria in 605 BC. The Assyrian Empire was followed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire (605 BC – 539 BC). During this period, Syria became a battle ground between Babylonia and another former Assyrian colony, that of Egypt. The Babylonians, like their Assyrian relations, were victorious over Egypt.
Classical antiquity
Lands that constitute modern-day Syria were part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and had been annexed by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC. Led by Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Persians retained Imperial Aramaic as one of the diplomatic languages of their empire, as well as the Assyrian name for the new satrapy of Aram/Syria Eber-Nari. Syria was conquered by the Macedonian Empire which was ruled by Alexander the Great c. 330 BC and consequently became Coele-Syria province of the Seleucid Empire (323 BC – 64 BC), with the Seleucid kings styling themselves "King of Syria" and the city of Antioch being its capital starting from 240 BC. Thus, it was the Greeks who introduced the name "Syria" to the region. Originally an Indo-European corruption of "Assyria" in northern Mesopotamia (Iraq), the Greeks used this term to describe not only Assyria itself but also the lands to the west which had for centuries been under Assyrian dominion. Thus in the Greco-Roman world both the Arameans of Syria and the Assyrians of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) to the east were referred to as "Syrians" or "Syriacs", despite these being distinct peoples in their own right, a confusion which would continue into the modern world. Eventually parts of southern Seleucid Syria were taken by the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty upon the slow disintegration of the Hellenistic Empire.
Syria briefly came under Armenian control from 83 BC, with the conquests of the Armenian king Tigranes the Great, who was welcomed as a savior from the Seleucids and Romans by the Syrian people. However, Pompey the Great, a general of the Roman Empire, rode to Syria and captured Antioch and turned Syria into a Roman province in 64 BC, thus ending Armenian control over the region which had lasted two decades. Syria prospered under Roman rule, being strategically located on the Silk Road, which gave it massive wealth and importance, making it the battleground for the rivaling Romans and Persians.
Palmyra, a rich and sometimes powerful native Aramaic-speaking kingdom, arose in northern Syria in the 2nd century; the Palmyrene established a trade network that made the city one of the richest in the Roman Empire. In the late 3rd century the Palmyrene king Odaenathus defeated the Persian emperor Shapur I and controlled the entirety of the Roman East while his successor and widow Zenobia established the Palmyrene Empire, which briefly conquered Egypt, Syria, Palestine, much of Asia Minor, Judah and Lebanon, before being finally brought under Roman control in 273.
The northern Mesopotamian Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene controlled areas of north east Syria between 10 and 117, before it was conquered by Rome. The Aramaic language has been found as far afield as Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain, with an inscription written by a Palmyrene emigrant at the site of Fort Arbeia. Control of Syria eventually passed from the Romans to the Byzantines with the split in the Roman Empire. The largely Aramaic-speaking population of Syria during the heyday of the Byzantine Empire was probably not exceeded again until the 19th century. Prior to the Arab Islamic Conquest in the 7th century, the bulk of the population were Arameans, but Syria was also home to Greek and Roman ruling classes, Assyrians still dwelt in the north east, Phoenicians along the coasts, and Jewish and Armenian communities were also extant in major cities, with Nabateans and pre-Islamic Arabs such as the Lakhmids and Ghassanids dwelling in the deserts of southern Syria. Syriac Christianity had taken hold as the major religion, although others still followed Judaism, Mithraism, Manicheanism, Greco-Roman Religion, Canaanite Religion and Mesopotamian Religion. Syria's large and prosperous population made Syria one of the most important of the Roman and Byzantine provinces, particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.
Syrians held considerable power during the Severan dynasty. The matriarch of the family and empress of Rome as wife of emperor Septimius Severus was Julia Domna, a Syrian from the city of Emesa (modern day Homs), whose family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the god El-Gabal. Her great nephews, also Arabs from Syria, would also become Roman emperors, the first being Elagabalus and the second his cousin Alexander Severus. Another Roman emperor who was a Syrian was Philip the Arab (Marcus Julius Philippus), who was born in Roman Arabia. He was emperor from 244 to 249 and ruled briefly during the Crisis of the Third Century. During his reign, he focused on his home town of Philippopolis (modern day Shahba) and began many construction projects to improve the city, most of which were halted after his death.
Syria is significant in the history of Christianity; Saul of Tarsus, better known as the Apostle Paul, was converted on the road to Damascus and emerged as a significant figure in the Christian Church at Antioch in ancient Syria.
Middle Ages
Muhammad's first interaction with the people of Syria was during the invasion of Dumatul Jandal in July 626 where he ordered his followers to invade Duma, because Muhammad received intelligence that some tribes there were involved in highway robbery and were preparing to attack Medina.William Montgomery Watt claims that this was the most significant expedition Muhammad ordered at the time, even though it received little notice in the primary sources. Dumat Al-Jandal was 800 kilometres (500 mi) from Medina, and Watt says that there was no immediate threat to Muhammad, other than the possibility that his communications to Syria and supplies to Medina would be interrupted. Watt says "It is tempting to suppose that Muhammad was already envisaging something of the expansion which took place after his death", and that the rapid march of his troops must have "impressed all those who heard of it".William Muir also believes that the expedition was important as Muhammad followed by 1,000 men reached the confines of Syria, where distant tribes had learnt his name, while the political horizon of Muhammad was extended.
By 640, Syria was conquered by the Rashidun army led by Khalid ibn al-Walid. In the mid-7th century, the Umayyad dynasty placed the capital of the empire in Damascus. The country's power declined during later Umayyad rule; this was mainly through totalitarianism, corruption and the resulting revolutions. The Umayyad dynasty was overthrown in 750 by the Abbasid dynasty, which moved the capital of empire to Baghdad. Arabic – made official under Umayyad rule – became the dominant language, replacing Greek and Aramaic of the Byzantine era. In 887, the Egypt-based Tulunids annexed Syria from the Abbasids and were later replaced by the Egypt-based Ikhshidids and then by the Hamdanids originating in Aleppo founded by Sayf al-Dawla.
Sections of Syria were held by French, English, Italian and German overlords between 1098 and 1189 during the Crusades and were known collectively as the Crusader states, among which the primary one in Syria was the Principality of Antioch. The coastal mountainous region was occupied in part by the Nizari Ismailis, the so-called Assassins, who had intermittent confrontations and truces with the Crusader States. Later in history when "the Nizaris faced renewed Frankish hostilities, they received timely assistance from the Ayyubids." After a century of Seljuk rule, Syria was largely conquered (1175–1185) by the Kurdish liberator Salah ad-Din, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt. Aleppo fell to the Mongols of Hulegu in January 1260; Damascus fell in March, but then Hulegu was forced to break off his attack to return to China to deal with a succession dispute.
A few months later, the Mamluks arrived with an army from Egypt and defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut in Galilee. The Mamluk leader, Baibars, made Damascus a provincial capital. When he died, power was taken by Qalawun. In the meantime, an emir named Sunqur al-Ashqar had tried to declare himself ruler of Damascus, but he was defeated by Qalawun on 21 June 1280 and fled to northern Syria. Al-Ashqar, who had married a Mongol woman, appealed for help from the Mongols. The Mongols of the Ilkhanate took Aleppo in October 1280, but Qalawun persuaded Al-Ashqar to join him, and they fought against the Mongols on 29 October 1281 in the Second Battle of Homs, which was won by the Mamluks. In 1400, the Muslim Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamurlane invaded Syria, in which he sacked Aleppo and captured Damascus after defeating the Mamluk army. The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans who were deported to Samarkand. Tamurlane conducted massacres of the Assyrian Christian population, greatly reducing their numbers. By the end of the 15th century, the discovery of a sea route from Europe to the Far East ended the need for an overland trade route through Syria.
Ottoman Syria
In 1516, the Ottoman Empire invaded the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, conquering Syria and incorporating it into its empire. The Ottoman system was not burdensome to Syrians because the Turks respected Arabic as the language of the Quran and accepted the mantle of defenders of the faith. Damascus was made the major entrepot for Mecca, and as such it acquired a holy character to Muslims, because of the beneficial results of the countless pilgrims who passed through on the hajj.
Ottoman administration followed a system that led to peaceful coexistence. Each ethno-religious minority—Arab Shia Muslim, Arab Sunni Muslim, Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Maronite Christians, Assyrian Christians, Armenians, Kurds and Jews—constituted a millet. The religious heads of each community administered all personal status laws and performed certain civil functions as well. In 1831, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt renounced his loyalty to the empire and overran Ottoman Syria, capturing Damascus. His short-term rule over the domain attempted to change the demographics and social structure of the region: he brought thousands of Egyptian villagers to populate the plains of southern Syria, rebuilt Jaffa and settled it with veteran Egyptian soldiers aiming to turn it into a regional capital, and he crushed peasant and Druze rebellions and deported non-loyal tribesmen. By 1840, however, he had to surrender the area back to the Ottomans. From 1864, Tanzimat reforms were applied on Ottoman Syria, carving out the provinces (vilayets) of Aleppo, Zor, Beirut and Damascus Vilayet; Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon was created, and soon after the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was given a separate status.
During World War I, the Ottoman Empire entered the conflict as a Central Power. It ultimately suffered defeat and loss of control of the entire Near East to the British Empire and French Empire. During the conflict, genocide against indigenous Christian peoples was carried out by the Ottomans and their allies in the form of the Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide, of which Deir ez-Zor in Ottoman Syria was the final destination of these death marches. In the midst of World War I, two Allied diplomats (Frenchman François Georges-Picot and Briton Mark Sykes) secretly agreed on the post-war division of the Ottoman Empire into respective zones of influence in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Initially, the two territories were separated by a border that ran in an almost straight line from Jordan to Iran. However, the discovery of oil in the region of Mosul just before the end of the war led to yet another negotiation with France in 1918 to cede this region to the British zone of influence, which was to become Iraq. The fate of the intermediate province of Zor was left unclear; its occupation by Arab nationalists resulted in its attachment to Syria. This border was recognized internationally when Syria became a League of Nations mandate in 1920 and has not changed to date.
French Mandate
In 1920, a short-lived independent Kingdom of Syria was established under Faisal I of the Hashemite family. However, his rule over Syria ended after only a few months, following the Battle of Maysalun. French troops occupied Syria later that year after the San Remo conference proposed that the League of Nations put Syria under a French mandate. General Gouraud had according to his secretary de Caix two options: "Either build a Syrian nation that does not exist... by smoothing the rifts which still divide it" or "cultivate and maintain all the phenomena, which require our arbitration that these divisions give". De Caix added "I must say only the second option interests me". This is what Gouraud did.
In 1925, Sultan al-Atrash led a revolt that broke out in the Druze Mountain and spread to engulf the whole of Syria and parts of Lebanon. Al-Atrash won several battles against the French, notably the Battle of al-Kafr on 21 July 1925, the Battle of al-Mazraa on 2–3 August 1925, and the battles of Salkhad, al-Musayfirah and Suwayda. France sent thousands of troops from Morocco and Senegal, leading the French to regain many cities, although resistance lasted until the spring of 1927. The French sentenced al-Atrash to death, but he had escaped with the rebels to Transjordan and was eventually pardoned. He returned to Syria in 1937 after the signing of the Syrian-French Treaty.
Syria and France negotiated a treaty of independence in September 1936, and Hashim al-Atassi was the first president to be elected under the first incarnation of the modern republic of Syria. However, the treaty never came into force because the French Legislature refused to ratify it. With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of Vichy France until the British and Free French occupied the country in the Syria-Lebanon campaign in July 1941. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalists and the British forced the French to evacuate their troops in April 1946, leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate.
Independent Syrian Republic
Upheaval dominated Syrian politics from independence through the late 1960s. In May 1948, Syrian forces invaded Palestine, together with other Arab states, and immediately attacked Jewish settlements. President Shukri al-Quwwatli instructed his troops in the front, "to destroy the Zionists". The invasion purpose was to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel. Toward this end, the Syrian government engaged in an active process of recruiting former Nazis, including several former members of the Schutzstaffel, to build up their armed forces and military intelligence capabilities. Defeat in this war was one of several trigger factors for the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état by Colonel Husni al-Za'im, described as the first military overthrow of the Arab World since the start of the Second World War. This was soon followed by another overthrow, by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, who was quickly deposed by Colonel Adib Shishakli, all within the same year.
Shishakli eventually abolished multipartyism altogether but was overthrown in a 1954 coup, and the parliamentary system was restored. However, by this time, power was increasingly concentrated in the military and security establishment. The weakness of Parliamentary institutions and the mismanagement of the economy led to unrest and the influence of Nasserism and other ideologies. There was fertile ground for various Arab nationalist, Syrian nationalist, and socialist movements, which represented disaffected elements of society. Notably included were religious minorities, who demanded radical reform.
In November 1956, as a direct result of the Suez Crisis, Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union. This gave a foothold for communist influence within the government in exchange for military equipment.Turkey then became worried about this increase in the strength of Syrian military technology, as it seemed feasible that Syria might attempt to retake İskenderun. Only heated debates in the United Nations lessened the threat of war.
United Arab Republic
On 1 February 1958, Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli and Egypt's Nasser announced the merging of Egypt and Syria, creating the United Arab Republic, and all Syrian political parties, as well as the communists therein, ceased overt activities. Meanwhile, a group of Syrian Ba'athist officers, alarmed by the party's poor position and the increasing fragility of the union, decided to form a secret Military Committee; its initial members were Lieutenant-Colonel Muhammad Umran, Major Salah Jadid and Captain Hafiz al-Assad. Syria seceded from the union with Egypt on 28 September 1961, after a coup and terminated the political union.
Ba'athist Syria
The instability which followed the 1961 coup culminated in the 8 March 1963 Ba'athist coup. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. The new Syrian cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members. Since the 1963 seizure of power by its Military Committee, the Ba'ath party has ruled Syria as a totalitarian state. Ba'athists took control over country's politics, education, culture, religion and surveilled all aspects of civil society through its powerful Mukhabarat (secret police). Syrian Arab Armed forces and secret police were integrated with the Ba'ath party apparatus; after the purging of traditional civilian and military elites by the regime.
The 1963 Ba'athist coup marked a "radical break" in modern Syrian history, after which Ba'ath party monopolised power in the country to establish a one-party state and shaped a socio-political order by enforcing its state ideology. On 23 February 1966, the neo-Ba'athist Military Committee carried out an intra-party rebellion against the Ba'athist Old Guard (Aflaq and Bitar), imprisoned President Amin al-Hafiz and designated a regionalist, civilian Ba'ath government on 1 March. Although Nureddin al-Atassi became the formal head of state, Salah Jadid was Syria's effective ruler from 1966 until November 1970, when he was deposed by Hafiz al-Assad, who at the time was Minister of Defense.
The coup led to the schism within the original pan-Arab Ba'ath Party: one Iraqi-led ba'ath movement (ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003) and one Syrian-led ba'ath movement was established. In the first half of 1967, a low-key state of war existed between Syria and Israel. Conflict over Israeli cultivation of land in the Demilitarized Zone led to 7 April pre-war aerial clashes between Israel and Syria. When the Six-Day War broke out between Egypt and Israel, Syria joined the war and attacked Israel as well. In the final days of the war, Israel turned its attention to Syria, capturing two-thirds of the Golan Heights in under 48 hours. The defeat caused a split between Jadid and Assad over what steps to take next. Disagreement developed between Jadid, who controlled the party apparatus, and Assad, who controlled the military. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat during the "Black September (also known as the Jordan Civil War of 1970)" hostilities with Jordan reflected this disagreement.
The power struggle culminated in the November 1970 Syrian Corrective movement, a bloodless military coup that installed Hafiz al-Assad as the strongman of the government. Assad transformed a Ba'athist party state into a totalitarian dictatorship marked by his pervasive grip on the party, armed forces, secret police, media, education sector, religious and cultural spheres and all aspects of civil society. He assigned Alawite loyalists to key posts in the military forces, bureaucracy, intelligence and the ruling elite. A cult of personality revolving around Hafiz and his family became a core tenet of Ba'athist ideology, which espoused that Assad dynasty was destined to rule perennially. On 6 October 1973, Syria and Egypt initiated the Yom Kippur War against Israel. The Israel Defense Forces reversed the initial Syrian gains and pushed deeper into Syrian territory. The village of Quneitra was largely destroyed by the Israeli army. In the late 1970s, an Islamist uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood was aimed against the government. Islamists attacked civilians and off-duty military personnel, leading security forces to also kill civilians in retaliatory strikes. The uprising had reached its climax in the 1982 Hama massacre, when more than 40,000 people were killed by Syrian military troops and Ba'athist paramilitaries. It has been described as the "single deadliest act" of violence perpetrated by any state upon its own population in modern Arab history
In a major shift in relations with both other Arab states and the Western world, Syria participated in the United States-led Gulf War against Saddam Hussein. The country participated in the multilateral Madrid Conference of 1991, and during the 1990s engaged in negotiations with Israel along with Palestine and Jordan. These negotiations failed, and there have been no further direct Syrian-Israeli talks since Assad's meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
21st century
Lebanese war, civil war and fall of the Ba'athist regime
Hafiz al-Assad died on 10 June 2000. His son, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president in an election in which he ran unopposed. His election saw the birth of the Damascus Spring and hopes of reform, but by autumn 2001 the authorities had suppressed the movement, imprisoning some of its leading intellectuals. Instead, reforms have been limited to some market reforms. On 5 October 2003 Israel bombed a site near Damascus, claiming it was a terrorist training facility for members of Islamic Jihad. In March 2004, Syrian Kurds and Arabs clashed in al-Qamishli. Signs of rioting were seen in Qamishli and Hasakeh. In 2005, Syria ended its military presence in Lebanon.Assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005 led to international condemnation and triggered a popular Intifada in Lebanon, known as "the Cedar Revolution", which forced the Assad regime to end its 29-year-old military occupation in Lebanon. On 6 September 2007, foreign jet fighters, suspected as Israeli, reportedly carried out Operation Orchard against a suspected nuclear reactor under construction by North Korean technicians.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing internal violent conflict in Syria. It is a part of the wider Arab Spring, a wave of upheaval throughout the Arab World. Public demonstrations across Syria began on 26 January 2011 and developed into a nationwide uprising. Protesters demanded the resignation of Assad, the overthrow of his government, and an end to nearly five decades of Ba'ath Party rule. Since spring 2011, the Syrian government deployed the Syrian Army to quell the uprising, and several cities were besieged, though the unrest continued. According to some witnesses, soldiers, who refused to open fire on civilians, were summarily executed by the Syrian Army. The Syrian government denied reports of defections, and blamed armed gangs for causing trouble. Since early autumn 2011, civilians and army defectors began forming fighting units, which began an insurgency campaign against the Syrian Army. The insurgents unified under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and fought in an increasingly organized fashion; however, the civilian component of the armed opposition lacked an organized leadership.
Ranked 8th last on the 2024 Global Peace Index and 4th worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, Ba'athist Syria was one of the most dangerous places for journalists. Freedom of the press was extremely limited, and the Assad regime was ranked 2nd worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. Ba'athist Syria was also the most corrupt regime in the Middle East and was ranked the 2nd lowest globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. The country also became the epicentre of a multi-billion dollar illicit drug cartel, sponsored by the Assad regime, which was the largest in the world.
By 2024, the Syrian civil war had resulted in more than 600,000 deaths, with pro-Assad forces causing more than 90% of the total civilian casualties. Between March 2011 and March 2021, more than 306,000 civilians were killed in the civil war. The war led to a massive refugee crisis, with an estimated 7.6 million internally displaced people (July 2015 UNHCR figure) and over 5 million refugees (July 2017 registered by UNHCR). The war has also worsened economic conditions, with more than 90% of the population living in poverty and 80% facing food insecurity.
The Arab League, the United States, the European Union states, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and other countries have condemned the use of violence against the protesters. China and Russia have avoided condemning the government or applying sanctions, saying that such methods could escalate into foreign intervention. However, military intervention has been ruled out by most countries. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership over the government's response to the crisis, but sent an observer mission in December 2011, as part of its proposal for peaceful resolution of the crisis.
Territories controlled by the SDF and the United States (yellow), IS (grey), the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, Russia and Iran (red), SNA and Turkey (light green), Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (white), SFA and the United States (teal).
In December 2024, violence flared up once again. Rebel factions, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took control of Aleppo in a lightning offensive, prompting a retaliatory airstrike campaign by Syrian regime forces, supported by Russian aviation assets. The strikes, which targeted population centers and several hospitals in rebel-held city of Idlib, resulted in at least 25 deaths according to the White Helmets rescue group. NATO issued a joint statement calling for the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure to prevent further displacement and ensure humanitarian access. They stressed the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which advocates for dialogue between the Syrian government and opposition forces.
The rebel offensive, which had begun on 27 November, continued its advance into Hama province following their capture of Aleppo. On 4 December, fierce clashes erupted in Hama province as the Syrian army engaged rebel forces in a bid to halt their advance on the key city of Hama. Government forces claimed to have launched a counteroffensive with air support, pushing back rebel factions, including HTS, around six miles from the city. However, despite reinforcements, the rebels captured the city on 5 December. The fighting led to widespread displacement, with nearly 50,000 people fleeing the area and over 600 casualties reported, including 104 civilians.
Territories controlled by the Syrian Armed Forces (white) and SOR (pink), Turkey and SNA (light green), the United States and SDF (yellow), IS (grey), the Syrian uncertain/mixed (red/light grey), the United States and SFA (teal).
Rebel forces reached the outskirts of Homs on 5 December, beginning a three-day battle for the city. Simultaneously, an HTS-coordinatedmass uprising led by a coalition of Druze tribes and opposition forces captured the southern cities of Suwayda and Daraa by 6 December, and rapidly advanced northwards to encircle Damascus over the following day. Homs was captured by rebel forces by the early morning of 8 December, leaving no major regime strongholds between the rebel advance and Damascus itself.
Cut off from the Alawite heartland of Tartus and Latakia governorates, faced with a rebel pincer from both north and south bearing down on Damascus, and with no hope of foreign intervention from the regime's Russian and Iranian benefactors, Assadist authority over remaining regime-held territories rapidly disintegrated. The Syrian Arab Armed Forces melted away as its soldiers abandoned their weapons and uniforms, many deserting across the border to Iraq and Lebanon. Opposition forces captured the capital Damascus on 8 December, toppling Bashar al-Assad's government and ending the Assad family's 53-year-long rule over the country. Assad fled to Moscow with his family, where he was granted asylum.
Post-Ba'athist Syria: Interim Period
Following the fall of the Assad regime, Assad's ninth prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, with support from the opposition and Ahmed al-Sharaa, remained at his post in a caretaker capacity until a transitional government led by Mohammed al-Bashir was formed the following day. Al-Jalali called for fresh elections so that the Syrian people may choose their new leaders.
Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, Mohammed al-Bashir headed the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) formed in the province of Idlib by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist militant organization which led the overthrow of Assad in December 2024. In general, the formation of the Transitional Government was scaling of the SSG "to the whole of Syria", as the composition of the new government was almost the same as of the one of the SSG. According to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, critics and opponents of the HTS were subject to repression in forms of enforced disappearances and tortures.
Shortly after the fall of the Assad regime, Israel commenced a ground invasion of the Purple Line buffer zone near the Golan Heights, as well as commencing a series of airstrikes against Syrian military depots and naval bases. The Israeli Defense Forces claims that it is destroying Ba'athist military infrastructure, including chemical weapons plants, so that the rebels cannot use them.
Despite the collapse of the Assad regime, Turkish-backed Syrian National Army fighters in northern Syria continued their offensive against U.S.-backed SDF forces until a ceasefire was reached on 11 December.
The prime minister of the transitional government, Mohammed al-Bashir, has promised to allow Christians and other minorities to continue practicing their religion without interference. However, this has been met with doubts as many rebel forces had previous connections to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The use of a variation of the Tawhid flag by the new government alongside the opposition flag also raised worries, as it implies that the new state may be less secular.Aisha al-Dibs was appointed as the Minister of Women's Affairs on 22 December 2024.
On 12 December 2024, a spokesman of the transitional government speaking to Agence France-Presse said that during the government's three-month term, the constitution and parliament would be suspended and that a 'judicial and human rights committee' would be established to review the constitution, prior to making amendments.
Geography
Syria's climate varies from the humid Mediterranean coast, through a semi-arid steppe zone, to arid desert in the east. The country consists mostly of arid plateau, although the northwest part bordering the Mediterranean is fairly green. Al-Jazira in the northeast and Hawran in the south are important agricultural areas. The Euphrates, Syria's most important river, crosses the country in the east. Syria is one of the fifteen states that comprise the so-called "cradle of civilization". Its land straddles the northwest of the Arabian plate.
Petroleum in commercial quantities was first discovered in the northeast in 1956. The most important oil fields are those of , , Rmelan near al-Hasakah, as well as al-Omar and fields near Dayr az–Zawr. The fields are a natural extension of the Iraqi fields of Mosul and Kirkuk. Petroleum became Syria's leading natural resource and chief export after 1974. Natural gas was discovered at the field of Jbessa in 1940.
Biodiversity
Syria contains four terrestrial ecoregions: Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands, Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests, Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests, and Mesopotamian shrub desert. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.64/10, ranking it 144th globally out of 172 countries.
Government and politics
Post-Ba'athist Syria
Syria is currently undergoing a political transition following the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024. A transitional government, led by Mohammed al-Bashir has been formed to govern the country, initially until 1 March 2025. The Syrian constitution and parliament were suspended on 12 December 2024 for the duration of the transitional period. Ahmed al-Sharaa was named as transitional president on 29 January 2025 and an interim legislative council is expected to be formed to act as Syria's legislature until a new constitution is adopted.
Ba'athist Syria (1963–2024)
The Syrian Arab Republic was a presidential state that nominally permitted the candidacy of individuals who were not part of the Ba'ath-controlled National Progressive Front. Despite this, Syria remained a one-party state with an extensive secret police apparatus that curtailed any independent political activity. The constitution introduced unilaterally by the Assad regime, without the participation of the Syrian opposition, had bolstered its authoritarian character by bestowing extraordinary powers on the presidency, and a Ba'athist political committee continued to be responsible for authorization of political parties.
The ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party governed Syria as a totalitarian police state through its control of the Syrian military and security apparatus. The 50th edition of Freedom in the World, published by Freedom House in 2023, designated Syria as "Worst of the Worst" among the "Not Free" countries and gave it the lowest score (1/100) alongside South Sudan.
According to the 2012 Syrian constitution, the President of Syria was the head of the Syrian state, while the Prime Minister of Syria was nominally the head of government,[unreliable source?] although real power in the system lay with the presidency. The legislature, the People's Assembly, was the body responsible for passing laws, approving government appropriations and debating policy.[unreliable source?] In the event of a vote of no confidence by a simple majority, the prime minister was required to tender the resignation of their government to the president.[unreliable source?] Since the rule of Hafez al-Assad, the Ba'athist political system was centered around a comprehensive cult of personality focused on the al-Assad family; with Alawite loyalists of the Ba'ath party dominating key positions in the military apparatus, secret police, and political establishment.
The executive branch consisted of the president, two vice presidents, the prime minister, and the Council of Ministers (cabinet). The constitution required the president to be a Muslim but did not make Islam the state religion. On 31 January 1973, Hafiz al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. Unlike previous constitutions, this one did not require that the President of Syria be a Muslim, leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama, Homs, and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the traditional ulama. They labelled Assad the "enemy of Allah" and called for a jihad against his rule. The government survived a series of armed revolts led mostly by Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, between 1976 and 1982, through a series of repressions and massacres. The constitution gave the president the right to appoint ministers, to declare war and state of emergency, to issue laws (which, except in the case of emergency, require ratification by the People's Council), to declare amnesty, to amend the constitution, and to appoint civil servants and military personnel. According to the 2012 constitution, the president was elected by Syrian citizens in a direct election. Syria's legislative branch was the unicameral People's Council. The People's Council primarily served as an institution to validate Syria's one-party system and re-affirm the legislative proceedings of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath party.
There was no independent judiciary in Syria, since all judges and prosecutors were required to be Ba'athist appointees. Syria's judicial branches include the Supreme Constitutional Court, the High Judicial Council, the Court of Cassation, and the State Security Courts. Islamic jurisprudence was a main source of legislation and Syria's judicial system had elements of Ottoman, French, and Islamic laws. Syria had three levels of courts: courts of first instance, courts of appeals, and the constitutional court, the highest tribunal. Religious courts handled questions of personal and family law. The Supreme State Security Court was abolished by Bashar al-Assad in 2011. As a result of the ongoing civil war, various alternative governments were formed, including the Syrian Interim Government, the Democratic Union Party and localized regions governed by sharia. Representatives of the Syrian Interim government were invited to take up Syria's seat at the Arab League in 2013 and was recognised as the "sole representative of the Syrian people" by several nations including the United States, United Kingdom, and France.
Syria's elections are conducted through a sham process; characterised by wide-scale rigging, repetitive voting and absence of voter registration and verification systems. Parliamentary elections were held on 13 April 2016 in the government-controlled areas of Syria, for all 250 seats of Syria's unicameral legislature, the Majlis al-Sha'ab, or the People's Council of Syria. Even before results had been announced, several nations, including Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, have declared their refusal to accept the results, largely citing it "not representing the will of the Syrian people." However, representatives of the Russian Federation have voiced their support of this election's results. Various independent observers and international organizations have denounced the Assad regime's electoral conduct as a scam; with the United Nations condemning it as illegitimate elections with "no mandate".Electoral Integrity Project's 2022 Global report designated Syrian elections as a "facade" with the worst electoral integrity in the world alongside Comoros and Central African Republic. Three alternative governments formed during the Syrian civil war, the Syrian Interim Government (formed in 2013), Rojava (formed in 2016) and the Syrian Salvation Government (formed in 2017), control northern areas of the country and operated independently of the Syrian Arab Republic.
Administrative divisions
Syria is divided into 14 governorates, which are subdivided into 61 districts, which are further divided into sub-districts.
| No. | Governorate | Capital |
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| 1 | Latakia | Latakia |
| 2 | Idlib | Idlib |
| 3 | Aleppo | Aleppo |
| 4 | Raqqa | Raqqa |
| 5 | Al-Hasakah | Al-Hasakah |
| 6 | Tartus | Tartus |
| 7 | Hama | Hama |
| 8 | Deir ez-Zor | Deir ez-Zor |
| 9 | Homs | Homs |
| 10 | Damascus | Damascus |
| 11 | Rif Dimashq | Douma |
| 12 | Quneitra | Quneitra |
| 13 | Daraa | Daraa |
| 14 | Al-Suwayda | Al-Suwayda |
Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), while de facto autonomous, is not recognized by the country as such. The AANES, also known as Rojava, consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian civil war, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.
While entertaining some foreign relations, the region is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria or any state though it has been recognized by the regional Catalan Parliament. The AANES has widespread support for its universal democratic, sustainable, autonomous pluralist, equal, and feminist policies in dialogues with other parties and organizations. Northeastern Syria is polyethnic and home to sizeable ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian populations, with smaller communities of ethnic Turkmen, Armenians, Circassians, and Yazidis.
The supporters of the region's administration state that it is an officially secular polity with direct democratic ambitions based on an anarchistic, feminist, and libertarian socialist ideology promoting decentralization, gender equality, environmental sustainability, social ecology and pluralistic tolerance for religious, cultural and political diversity, and that these values are mirrored in its constitution, society, and politics, stating it to be a model for a federalized Syria as a whole, rather than outright independence. The region's administration has also been accused by some partisan and non-partisan sources of authoritarianism and support of the Syrian government. However, despite this the AANES has been the most democratic system in Syria, with direct open elections, universal equality, respecting human rights within the region, as well as defense of minority and religious rights within Syria.[excessive citations]
In 2019, the SDF announced that it had reached an agreement with the Syrian Army which allowed the latter to enter the SDF-held cities of Manbij and Kobani in order to dissuade a Turkish attack on those cities as part of the cross-border offensive by Turkish and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. The Syrian Army also deployed in the north of Syria together with the SDF along the Syrian-Turkish border and entered into several SDF-held cities such as Ayn Issa and Tell Tamer. Following the creation of the Second Northern Syria Buffer Zone the SDF stated that it was ready to work cooperatively with the Syrian Army if a political settlement between the Syrian government and the SDF was achieved.
Foreign relations
- Ba'athist era
Ensuring national security, increasing influence among its Arab neighbors, and securing the return of the Golan Heights, have been the primary goals of Syria's foreign policy. At many points in its history, Syria has seen virulent tension with its geographically cultural neighbors, such as Turkey, Israel, Iraq, and Lebanon. Syria enjoyed an improvement in relations with several of the states in its region in the 21st century, prior to the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war.
Since the ongoing civil war of 2011 and associated killings and human rights abuses, Syria has been increasingly isolated from the countries in the region and the wider international community. Diplomatic relations have been severed with several countries including: Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, United States, Belgium, Spain, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
From the Arab league, Syria continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen. Following its violent suppression of the Arab Spring protests of the 2011 Syrian Revolution, the Syrian government was suspended from the Arab League in November 2011 for over 11 years, until its reinstatement in 2023. Syria also quit the Union for the Mediterranean. After 11 years, the Arab League readmitted Syria. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria in August 2012 citing "deep concern at the massacres and inhuman acts" perpetrated by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.
International disputes
In 1939, while Syria was still a French mandate the French allowed a plebiscite regarding the Sanjak of Alexandretta joining to Turkey as part of a treaty of friendship in World War II. In order to facilitate this, a faulty election was done in which ethnic Turks who were originally from the Sanjak but lived in Adana and other areas near the border in Turkey came to vote in the elections, shifting the election in favor of secession. Through this, the Hatay Province of Turkey was formed. The move by the French was very controversial in Syria, and only five years later Syria became independent. Despite the Turkish annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, the Syrian government has refused to recognize Turkish sovereignty over the region since Independence, except for a short period in 1949.
The western two-thirds of Syria's Golan Heights region are since 1967 occupied by Israel and were in 1981 effectively annexed by Israel, whereas the eastern third is controlled by Syria, with the UNDOF maintaining a buffer zone in between, to implement the ceasefire of the Purple Line. Israel's 1981 Golan annexation law is not recognized in international law. The UN Security Council condemned it in Resolution 497 (1981) as "null and void and without international legal effect." Since then, General Assembly resolutions on "The Occupied Syrian Golan" reaffirm the illegality of Israeli occupation and annexation. The Syrian government continues to demand the return of this territory.
In early 1976, Syria entered Lebanon, beginning their 29-year military presence. Syria entered on the invitation of Suleiman Franjieh, the Maronite Christian president at the time to help aid the Lebanese Christian militias against the Palestinian militias. Over the following 15 years of Lebanese civil war, Syria fought for control over Lebanon. The Syrian military remained in Lebanon until 2005 in response to domestic and international pressure after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Another disputed territory is the Shebaa farms, located in the intersection of the Lebanese-Syrian border and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The farms, which are 11 km long and about 3 kilometers wide were occupied by Israel in 1981, along with rest of the Golan Heights. Yet following Syrian army advances the Israeli occupation ended and Syria became the de facto ruling power over the farms. Yet after Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah claimed that the withdrawal was not complete because Shebaa was on Lebanese – not Syrian – territory. After studying 81 maps, the United Nations concluded that there is no evidence of the abandoned farmlands being Lebanese. Nevertheless, Lebanon has continued to claim ownership of the territory.
Military
The President of Syria is commander in chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, comprising some 400,000 troops upon mobilization.The military is a conscripted force; males serve 30 months in the military upon reaching the age of 18. The obligatory military service period is being decreased over time, in 2005 from two and a half years to two years, in 2008 to 21 months and in 2011 to year and a half.
The breakup of the Soviet Union—long the principal source of training, material, and credit for the Syrian forces—may have slowed Syria's ability to acquire modern military equipment. It has an arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles. In the early 1990s, Scud-C missiles with a 500-kilometre (310-mile) range were procured from North Korea, and Scud-D, with a range of up to 700 kilometres (430 miles), is allegedly being developed by Syria with the help of North Korea and Iran, according to Zisser.
Syria received significant financial aid from Arab states of the Persian Gulf as a result of its participation in the Persian Gulf War, with a sizable portion of these funds earmarked for military spending. Iran and Russia are biggest suppliers of military aid to the Assad-led Syrian Government.
Human rights
Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, the situation for human rights in Syria has long been a significant concern among independent organizations such as Human Rights Watch, who in 2010 referred to the country's record as "among the worst in the world." The 2011 Freedom House report ranked Syria "Not Free" in its annual Freedom in the World survey. The Ba'ath regime is a totalitarian dictatorship that has been internationally condemned for its domestic and political repression, including summary executions, massive censorship,forced disappearances, etc. as well as numerous crimes against Syrian civilians perpetrated during the civil war, such as massacres, barrel-bombings, chemical attacks, etc.
The authorities are accused of arresting democracy and human rights activists, censoring websites, detaining bloggers, and imposing travel bans. Arbitrary detention, torture, and disappearances are widespread. Although Syria's constitution guarantees gender equality, critics say that personal statutes laws and the penal code discriminate against women and girls. Moreover, it also grants leniency for so-called honour killing. As of 9 November 2011 during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations reported that of the over 3,500 deaths, over 250 deaths were children as young as two years old, and that boys as young as 11 years old have been gang-raped by security services officers.People opposing President Assad's rule claim that more than 200, mostly civilians, were massacred and about 300 injured in Hama in shelling by the government forces on 12 July 2012.
In August 2013, the government was suspected of using chemical weapons against its civilians. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was "undeniable" that chemical weapons had been used in the country and that al-Assad's forces had committed a "moral obscenity" against his own people. "Make no mistake," Kerry said. "President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapon against the world's most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny". The Emergency Law, effectively suspending most constitutional protections, was in effect from 1963 until 21 April 2011. It was justified by the government in the light of the continuing war with Israel over the Golan Heights.
In August 2014, UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay criticized the international community over its "paralysis" in dealing with the civil war gripping the country, which by 2014 had resulted in 191,369 deaths with war crimes, according to Pillay, being committed with total impunity on all sides in the conflict. Minority Alawites and Christians were targeted by Islamists and other groups. Three years later in April 2017, the U.S. Navy carried out a missile attack against a Syrian air base which had allegedly been used to conduct a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians, according to the U.S. government. In November 2021, the U.S. Central Command called a 2019 airstrike that killed civilians in Syria "legitimate". The acknowledgement came after a New York Times investigation said the military had concealed the death of dozens of non-combatants.
Economy
This section needs to be updated. (December 2024) |
As of 2015[update], the Syrian economy relies upon inherently unreliable revenue sources such as dwindling customs and income taxes which are heavily bolstered by lines of credit from Iran. Iran is believed to have spent between $6 billion and US$20 billion per year on Syria during the civil war. The economy has contracted 60%, and the Syrian pound has lost 80% of its value, with the economy becoming part state-owned and part war economy. At the outset of the civil war, Syria was classified by the World Bank as a "lower middle income country." In 2010, Syria remained dependent on the oil and agriculture sectors. The oil sector provided about 40% of export earnings. Proven offshore expeditions have indicated that large sums of oil exist on the Mediterranean Sea floor between Syria and Cyprus. The agriculture sector contributes to about 20% of GDP and 20% of employment. Oil reserves are expected to decrease in the coming years, and Syria has become a net oil importer. The government increasingly relies on credit from Iran, Russia and China.
The economy is highly regulated by the government, which has increased subsidies and tightened trade controls to assuage protesters and protect foreign currency reserves. Long-run economic constraints include foreign trade barriers, declining oil production, high unemployment, rising budget deficits, and increasing pressure on water supplies caused by heavy use in agriculture, rapid population growth, industrial expansion, and water pollution. The UNDP announced in 2005 that 30% of the population lives in poverty, and 11.4% live below the subsistence level.
Syria's share in global exports has eroded gradually since 2001. The real per capita GDP growth was just 2.5% per year in the 2000–2008 period. Unemployment is high at above 10%. Poverty rates have increased from 11% in 2004 to 12.3% in 2007. In 2007, main exports included crude oil, refined products, raw cotton, clothing, fruits, and grains. The bulk of imports are raw materials essential for industry, vehicles, agricultural equipment, and heavy machinery. Earnings from oil exports as well as remittances from Syrian workers are the government's most important sources of foreign exchange.
Political instability poses a significant threat to future economic development. Foreign investment has been constrained by violence, government restrictions, economic sanctions, and international isolation. Prior to the civil war the government hoped to attract new investment in the tourism, natural gas, and service sectors to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil and agriculture. The government began to institute economic reforms aimed at liberalizing most markets, but those reforms were slow and ad hoc, and have been completely reversed since the outbreak of conflict.
As of 2012[update], the value of overall exports has been slashed by two-thirds, from the figure of US$12 billion in 2010 to only US$4 billion in 2012. Since 2012, oil and tourism industries in particular have been devastated, with US$5 billion lost. Reconstruction will cost as much as US$10 billion. Sanctions have sapped the government's finances. U.S. and European Union bans on oil imports, which went into effect in 2012, are estimated to cost Syria about $400 million per month. Around 40% of all employees in the tourism sector lost their jobs since the beginning of the war. In May 2015, ISIS captured Syria's phosphate mines, one of the Syrian government's last chief sources of income. The following month, ISIS blew up a gas pipeline to Damascus that was used to generate heating and electricity in Damascus and Homs; "the name of its game for now is denial of key resources to the regime" an analyst stated. In addition, ISIS was closing in on Shaer gas field and three other facilities in the area—Hayan, Jihar and Ebla—with the loss of these western gas fields having the potential to cause Iran to further subsidize the Syrian government.Aleppo soap is a popular product of Syria.
Agrarian reform measures were introduced which consisted of three interrelated programs: legislation regulating the relationship between agriculture laborers and landowners; legislation governing the ownership and use of private and state domain land and directing the economic organization of peasants; and measures reorganizing agricultural production under state control. Despite high levels of inequality in land ownership these reforms allowed for more progress in redistribution of land from 1958 to 1961 than any other reforms in Syria's history, since independence.
The first law passed (Law 134; passed 4 September 1958) was in response to concern about peasant mobilization and expanding peasants' rights. This was designed to strengthen the position of sharecroppers and agricultural laborers in relation to land owners. This law led to the creation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which announced the implementation of new laws that would allow the regulation of working condition especially for women and adolescents, set hours of work, and introduce the principle of minimum wage for paid laborers and an equitable division of harvest for sharecroppers. Furthermore, it obligated landlords to honor both written and oral contracts, established collective bargaining, contained provisions for workers' compensation, health, housing, and employment services. Law 134 was not designed strictly to protect workers. It also acknowledged the rights of landlords to form their own syndicates.
Energy
Agriculture
Despite the crisis in Syria, agriculture remains a key part of the economy. The sector still accounts for an estimated 26 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and represents a critical safety net for the 6.7 million Syrians – including those internally displaced – who still remain in rural areas. However, agriculture and the livelihoods that depend on it have suffered massive losses. Today, food production is at a record low and around half the population remaining in Syria are unable to meet their daily food needs.
Until the mid-1970s, agriculture in Syria was the primary economic activity in Syria. At independence in 1946, agriculture (including minor forestry and fishing) was the most important sector of the economy, and in the 1940s and early 1950s, agriculture was the fastest growing sector. Wealthy merchants from urban centers such as Aleppo invested in land development and irrigation. The rapid expansion of the cultivated area and increased output stimulated the rest of the economy. However, by the late 1950s, there was little land left that could easily be brought under cultivation. During the 1960s, agricultural output stagnated because of political instability and land reform. Between 1953 and 1976, agriculture's contribution to GDP increased (in constant prices) by only 3.2%, approximately the rate of population growth. From 1976 to 1984 growth in agriculture declined to 2% a year, and its importance in the economy declined as other sectors grew more rapidly.
In 1981, as in the 1970s, 53% of the population was still classified as rural, although movement to the cities continued to accelerate. However, in contrast to the 1970s, when 50% of the labor force was employed in agriculture, by 1983 agriculture employed only 30% of the labor force. Furthermore, by the mid-1980s, unprocessed farm products accounted for only 4% of exports, equivalent to 7% of non-petroleum exports. Industry, commerce, and transportation still depended on farm produce and related agro-business, but agriculture's preeminent position had clearly eroded. By 1985 agriculture (including a little forestry and fishing) contributed only 16.5% to GDP, down from 22.1% in 1976.
By the mid-1980s, the Syrian government had taken measures to revitalize agriculture. The 1985 investment budget saw a sharp rise in allocations for agriculture, including land reclamation and irrigation. The government's renewed commitment to agricultural development in the 1980s, by expanding cultivation and extending irrigation, promised brighter prospects for Syrian agriculture in the 1990s.
During the Syrian Civil War, the agricultural sector has witnessed a drop in producing all kinds of commodities such as wheat, cotton and olives, due to the lack of security and immigration of agricultural workforce, especially in Al-Hasakah Governorate and Aleppo Governorate.Transport
Syria has four international airports (Damascus, Aleppo, Lattakia and Qamishli), which serve as hubs for Syrian Air and are also served by a variety of foreign carriers. The majority of Syrian cargo is carried by Syrian Railways.[citation needed] As of 2024 there are no international rail services, but high-speed rail in Turkey is being extended close to the border. The road network in Syria is 69,873 kilometres (43,417 miles) long, including 1,103 kilometres (685 miles) of expressways. The country also has 900 kilometres (560 miles) of navigable but not economically significant waterways.
Internet and telecommunications
Telecommunications in Syria are overseen by the Ministry of Communications and Technology. In addition, Syrian Telecom plays an integral role in the distribution of government internet access. The Syrian Electronic Army serves as a pro-government military faction in cyberspace and has been long considered an enemy of the hacktivist group Anonymous. Because of internet censorship laws, 13,000 internet activists were arrested in 2011 and 2012.
Water supply and sanitation
Syria is a semiarid country with scarce water resources. The largest water consuming sector in Syria is agriculture. Domestic water use stands at only about 9% of total water use. A big challenge for Syria before the civil war was its high population growth (in 2006 the growth rate was 2.7%), leading to rapidly increasing demand for urban and industrial water.
Drug industry
Prior to the fall of the Ba'athist regime on 8 December 2024, Syria was home to a burgeoning illegal drugs industry run by associates and relatives of Bashar al-Assad. It mainly produced captagon, an addictive amphetamine popular in the Arab world. As of 2021, the export of illegal drugs eclipsed the country's legal exports, leading the New York Times to call Syria "the world's newest narcostate". The drug exports allow the government to generate hard currency and bypass international sanctions. Captagon is Syria's primary export, valued at a minimum of US$3.4 billion annually, surpassing the country's largest legal export, olive oil, which is valued at around US$122 million per year.
Demographics
| Year | Pop. | ±% p.a. |
|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 4,565,000 | — |
| 1970 | 6,305,000 | +3.28% |
| 1981 | 9,046,000 | +3.34% |
| 1994 | 13,782,000 | +3.29% |
| 2004 | 17,921,000 | +2.66% |
| 2011 | 21,124,000 | +2.38% |
| 2015 | 18,734,987 | −2.96% |
| 2019 | 18,528,105 | −0.28% |
| 2019 estimate Source: Central Bureau of Statistics of the Syrian Arab Republic, 2011 | ||
Most people live in the Euphrates River valley and along the coastal plain, a fertile strip between the coastal mountains and the desert. Overall population density before the civil war was about 99 per square kilometre (258 per square mile). According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers numbering approximately 1,852,300. The vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), but sizeable populations from Palestine (543,400) and Somalia (5,200) also lived in the country.
In what the UN has described as "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era", by 2014 about 9.5 million Syrians, half the population, had been displaced since March 2011; 4 million were outside the country as refugees. By 2020, the UN estimated that over 5.5 million Syrians were living as refugees in the region, and 6.1 million others were internally displaced.
Largest cities
Largest cities or towns in Syria Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (2004 Census) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Name | Province | Pop. | Rank | Name | Province | Pop. | ||
 Aleppo  Damascus | 1 | Aleppo | Aleppo Governorate | 2,132,100 | 11 | Tartus | Tartus Governorate | 115,769 |  Homs  Latakia |
| 2 | Damascus | Damascus | 1,552,161 | 12 | Jaramana | Rif Dimashq Governorate | 114,363 | ||
| 3 | Homs | Homs Governorate | 652,609 | 13 | Douma, Syria | Rif Dimashq Governorate | 110,893 | ||
| 4 | Latakia | Latakia Governorate | 383,786 | 14 | Manbij | Aleppo Governorate | 99,497 | ||
| 5 | Hama | Hama Governorate | 312,994 | 15 | Idlib | Idlib Governorate | 98,791 | ||
| 6 | Raqqa | Raqqa Governorate | 220,488 | 16 | Daraa | Daraa Governorate | 97,969 | ||
| 7 | Deir ez-Zor | Deir ez-Zor Governorate | 211,857 | 17 | Al-Hajar al-Aswad | Rif Dimashq Governorate | 84,948 | ||
| 8 | Hasakah | Al-Hasakah Governorate | 188,160 | 18 | Darayya | Rif Dimashq Governorate | 78,763 | ||
| 9 | Qamishli | Al-Hasakah Governorate | 184,231 | 19 | Suwayda | As-Suwayda Governorate | 73,641 | ||
| 10 | Sayyidah Zaynab | Rif Dimashq Governorate | 136,427 | 20 | Al-Thawrah | Raqqa Governorate | 69,425 | ||
Ethnic groups
Syrians are an overall indigenous Levantine people, closely related to their immediate neighbors, such as Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians and Jews. Syria has a population of approximately 18,500,000 (2019 estimate). Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian not including the 6 million refugees outside the country make up roughly 74% of the population. The indigenous Assyrians and Western Aramaic-speakers number around 400,000 people, with the Western Aramaic-speakers living mainly in the villages of Ma'loula, Jubb'adin and Bakh'a, while the Assyrians mainly reside in the north and northeast (Homs, Aleppo, Qamishli, Hasakah). Many (particularly the Assyrian group) still retain several Neo-Aramaic dialects as spoken and written languages.
The second-largest ethnic group in Syria are the Kurds. They constitute about 9% to 10% of the population, or approximately 2 million people (including 40,000 Yazidis). Most Kurds reside in the northeastern corner of Syria and most speak the Kurmanji variant of the Kurdish language. The third largest ethnic group are the Turkish-speaking Syrian Turkmen/Turkoman. There are no reliable estimates of their total population, with estimates ranging from several hundred thousand to 3.5 million. The fourth largest ethnic group are the Assyrians (3–4%), followed by the Circassians (1.5%) and the Armenians (1%), most of which are the descendants of refugees who arrived in Syria during the Armenian genocide. Syria holds the 7th largest Armenian population in the world. They are mainly gathered in Aleppo, Qamishli, Damascus and Kesab.
There are also smaller ethnic minority groups, such as the Albanians, Bosnians, Georgians, Greeks, Persians, Pashtuns and Russians. However, most of these ethnic minorities have become Arabized to some degree, particularly those who practice the Muslim faith. The largest concentration of the Syrian diaspora outside the Arab world is in Brazil, which has millions of people of Arab and other Near Eastern ancestries. Brazil is the first country in the Americas to offer humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees. The majority of Arab Argentines are from either Lebanese or Syrian background.
Languages
Arabic is the official language of the country. Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast. According to The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, in addition to Arabic, the following languages are spoken in the country, in order of the number of speakers: Kurdish,Turkish,Neo-Aramaic (four dialects),Circassian,Chechen,Armenian, and finally Greek. However, none of these minority languages have official status.
Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Arabic, and is still spoken among Assyrians, and Classical Syriac is still used as the liturgical language of various Syriac Christian denominations. Most remarkably, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in the village of Ma'loula as well as two neighboring villages, 56 km (35 mi) northeast of Damascus. English and French are widely spoken as second languages, but English is more often used.
Religion
Islam is the largest and predominant religion in Syria, comprising 87% of the population. Sunni Muslims make up around 74% of the population and Sunni Arabs account for 59–60%. Most Kurds (8.5%) and most Turkmens (3%) are Sunni, while 3% of Syrians are Shia Muslims (particularly Ismailis, and Twelvers but there are also Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens), 10% are Alawites, 10% are Christians (the majority are Antiochian Greek Orthodox, the rest are Syriac Orthodox, Greek Catholic and other Catholic Rites, Armenian Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, Protestants and other denominations), and 3% Druzes. Druze number around 500,000 and concentrate mainly in the southern area of Jabal al-Druze. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), 94.17% of Syrians are Muslims–79.19% are Sunnis and 14.10% are Shias (including Alawites)–and 3.84% of Syrians are Christians as of 2020[update].
Because the Assad family is Alawite, Alawites have historically dominated key government and military positions.
Christians numbering 1.2 million, a sizable number of whom are found among Syria's population of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, are divided into several sects. The Greek Orthodox make up 45.7% of the Christian population; the Syriac Orthodox make up 22.4%; the Armenian Orthodox make up 10.9%; the Catholics (including Greek Catholic, Syriac Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Maronite, Chaldean Catholic and Latin) make up 16.2%; Assyrian Church of the East and several smaller Christian denominations account for the remainder. Many Christian monasteries also exist. Many Christian Syrians belong to a high socio-economic class. As per one estimate, the count of Christians affiliated with established denominations in Syria has dropped from approximately 2.5 million before the civil war, to about 500,000 in 2023.
Syria was once home to a substantial population of Jews, with large communities in Damascus, Aleppo, and Qamishii. Due to a combination of persecution in Syria and opportunities elsewhere, the Jews began to emigrate in the second half of the 19th century to Great Britain, the United States, and Israel. The process was completed with the establishment of Israel in 1948. The remaining Jewish population dwindled as a result of the civil war. Today 100 Jews live in Syria. The United States is home to a large Syrian Jewish community, which is still considered as Syrian citizens by the Syrian government.
Education
Education is free and compulsory from ages 6 to 12. Schooling consists of six years of primary education followed by a three-year general or vocational training period and a three-year academic or vocational program. The second three-year period of academic training is required for university admission. Total enrollment at post-secondary schools is over 150,000. The literacy rate of Syrians aged 15 and older is 90.7% for males and 82.2% for females.
Since 1967, all schools, colleges, and universities have been under close government supervision by the Ba'ath Party.
There are six state universities in Syria and 15 private universities. The top two state universities are Damascus University (210,000 students as of 2014) and University of Aleppo. The top private universities in Syria are: Syrian Private University, Arab International University, University of Kalamoon and International University for Science and Technology. There are also many higher institutes in Syria, like the Higher Institute of Business Administration, which offer undergraduate and graduate programs in business.
Health
This section needs to be updated. (December 2024) |
In 2010, spending on healthcare accounted for 3.4% of the GDP. In 2008, there were 14.9 physicians and 18.5 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants. The life expectancy at birth was 75.7 years in 2010, or 74.2 years for males and 77.3 years for females.
Culture
Syria is a traditional society with a long cultural history. Importance is placed on family, religion, education, self-discipline and respect. Syrians' taste for the traditional arts is expressed in dances such as the al-Samah, the Dabkeh in all their variations, and the sword dance. Marriage ceremonies and the births of children are occasions for the lively demonstration of folk customs.
Literature
The literature of Syria has contributed to Arabic literature and has a proud tradition of oral and written poetry. Syrian writers, many of whom migrated to Egypt, played a crucial role in the nahda or Arab literary and cultural revival of the 19th century. Prominent contemporary Syrian writers include, among others, Adonis, Muhammad Maghout, Haidar Haidar, Ghada al-Samman, Nizar Qabbani and Zakariyya Tamer.
Ba'ath Party rule has brought about renewed censorship. In this context, the genre of the historical novel, spearheaded by Nabil Sulayman, Fawwaz Haddad, Khyri al-Dhahabi and Nihad Siris, is sometimes used as a means of expressing dissent, critiquing the present through a depiction of the past. Syrian folk narrative, as a subgenre of historical fiction, is imbued with magical realism, and is also used as a means of veiled criticism of the present. Salim Barakat, a Syrian émigré living in Sweden, is one of the leading figures of the genre. Contemporary Syrian literature also encompasses science fiction and futuristic utopiae (Nuhad Sharif, Talib Umran), which may also serve as media of dissent.
Music
The Syrian music scene, in particular that of Damascus, has long been among the Arab world's most important, especially in the field of classical Arab music. Syria has produced several pan-Arab stars, including Asmahan, Farid al-Atrash and singer Lena Chamamyan. The city of Aleppo is known for its muwashshah, a form of Andalous sung poetry popularized by Sabri Moudallal, as well as for popular stars like Sabah Fakhri.
Media
Television was introduced to Syria and Egypt in 1960, when both were part of the United Arab Republic. It broadcast in black and white until 1976. Syrian soap operas have considerable market penetration throughout the eastern Arab world.
Nearly all of Syria's media outlets are state-owned, and the Ba'ath Party controls nearly all newspapers. The authorities operate several intelligence agencies, among them Shu'bat al-Mukhabarat al-'Askariyya, employing many operatives. During the civil war many of Syria's artists, poets, writers and activists have been incarcerated, and some have been killed, including famed cartoonist Akram Raslan.
Cuisine
Syrian cuisine is rich and varied in its ingredients, linked to the regions where a specific dish has originated. Syrian food mostly consists of southern Mediterranean, Greek, and Southwest Asian dishes. Some Syrian dishes also evolved from Turkish and French cooking: dishes like shish kebab, stuffed zucchini/courgette, and yabraʾ (stuffed grape leaves, the word yabraʾ deriving from the Turkish word yaprak, meaning leaf).
The main dishes are kibbeh, hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh, shawarma, mujaddara, shanklish, pastırma, sujuk and baklava. Baklava is made of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey. Syrians often serve selections of appetizers, known as meze, before the main course. Za'atar, minced beef, and cheese manakish are popular hors d'œuvres. The Arabic flatbread khubz is always eaten together with meze.
Drinks vary, depending on the time of day and the occasion. Arabic coffee is the most well-known hot drink, usually prepared in the morning at breakfast or in the evening. It is usually served for guests or after food. Arak, an alcoholic drink, is a well-known beverage, served mostly on special occasions. Other Syrian beverages include ayran, jallab, white coffee, and a locally manufactured beer called Al Shark.
See also
- Index of Syria-related articles
- Outline of Syria
Notes
- Spoken by Kurdish population, and has an official status in Kurdish-led SDF-controlled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
- Spoken by Turkmen population
- Spoken by Assyrian population, and it is a regional official language (as Syriac) in Jazira Region of AANES, also traditionally spoken in Maaloula, Jubb'adin and Al-Sarkha
- Arabic: سُورِيَة, romanized: Sūriyah, or سُورِيَا, Sūriyā
- Arabic: اَلْجُمْهُورِيَّةُ ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْسُوْرِيَّة, romanized: al-Jumhūriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah as-Sūriyyah
- Sources:
- "Islamic bloc suspends Syria membership over crisis". DW News. 16 August 2012. Archived from the original on 27 June 2018.
- "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspends Syria". Ahram Online. 16 August 2012. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018.
- "OIC Suspends Syria Over Crackdown". RFE/RL. 16 August 2012. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023.
- Sources:
- The name "Rojava" ("The West") was initially used by the region's PYD-led government, before its usage was dropped in 2016. Since then, the name is still used by locals and international observers.
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Kurds are the second largest ethnic group in Syria, making up around 10% of the Syrian population and distributed among four regions...with a Yazidi minority that numbers around 40,000...
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This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab Israeli conflict Syrian Arab Republicا ل ج م ه ور ي ة ٱل ع ر ب ي ة ٱل س و ر ي ة Arabic al Jumhuriyyah al ʿArabiyyah as SuriyyahFlag de facto Coat of arms de facto Anthem ح م اة الد ي ار Ḥumat ad Diyar Guardians of the Homeland source source track track track track track track track track track Controlled territory shown in dark green Syria s claims over most of Turkey s Hatay Province and the Israeli occupied Golan Heights shown in light greenShow globeShow map of SyriaStatusUN member state under a transitional governmentCapitaland largest cityDamascus 33 30 N 36 18 E 33 500 N 36 300 E 33 500 36 300Major languagesArabicMinor languagesKurdish Kurmanji Syrian Turkish Neo Aramaic Turoyo OtherEthnic groups 2021 80 90 Arabs 9 10 Kurds 1 10 othersReligion 2024 94 17 Islam 79 19 Sunni 14 10 Shia including Alawism 2 5 Christianity 1 99 otherDemonym s SyrianGovernmentTransitional government PresidentAhmed al Sharaa Prime MinisterMohammed al BashirLegislatureInterim Legislative CouncilEstablishment Arab Kingdom of Syria8 March 1920 State of Syria under French mandate1 December 1924 First Syrian Republic14 May 1930 End of the French mandate17 April 1946 Part of the United Arab Republic22 February 1958 28 September 1961 Beginning of Ba athist rule8 March 1963 Ba athist regime overthrown and transitional government established8 December 2024Area Total185 180 km2 71 500 sq mi 87th Water 1 1Population 2023 estimate23 227 014 57th Density118 3 km2 306 4 sq mi 70th GDP PPP 2021 estimate Total 50 28 billion Per capita 3 300GDP nominal 2022 estimate Total 9 8 billion Per capita 800Gini 2022 26 6 low inequalityHDI 2022 0 557 medium 157th CurrencySyrian pound SYP Time zoneUTC 3 Arabia Standard Time Drives onRightCalling code 963ISO 3166 codeSYInternet TLD sy سوريا Syria officially the Syrian Arab Republic is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west Turkey to the north Iraq to the east and southeast Jordan to the south and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest It is a republic under a transitional government and comprises 14 governorates Damascus is the capital and largest city With a population of 25 million across an area of 185 180 square kilometres 71 500 sq mi it is the 57th most populous and 87th largest country The name Syria historically referred to a wider region broadly synonymous with the Levant and known in Arabic as ash Sham The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC Damascus and Aleppo are cities of great cultural significance Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital for the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt The modern Syrian state was established in the mid 20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule as a French Mandate The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman ruled Syrian provinces It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations an act which legally ended the French Mandate French troops withdrew in April 1946 granting the nation de facto independence The post independence period was tumultuous with multiple coup attempts in the country between 1949 and 1971 In 1958 Syria entered a brief union with Egypt which was terminated in a 1961 coup d etat The 1963 coup d etat carried out by the military committee of the Ba ath Party established a one party state which ran Syria under martial law from 1963 to 2011 effectively suspending constitutional protections for citizens Internal power struggles within Ba athist factions caused further coups in 1966 and 1970 the latter of which saw Hafez al Assad come to power Under Assad Syria became a hereditary dictatorship with power consolidated around his family Assad died in 2000 and he was succeeded by his son Bashar Since the Arab Spring in 2011 Syria has been embroiled in a multi sided civil war with the involvement of several countries leading to a refugee crisis in which more than 6 million refugees were displaced from the country excessive citations In response to rapid territorial gains made by the Islamic State during the civil war in 2014 and 2015 several countries intervened on behalf of various factions opposing it leading to its territorial defeat in 2017 in both central and eastern Syria Thereafter three political entities the Syrian Interim Government Syrian Salvation Government and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria emerged in Syrian territory to challenge Assad s rule In late 2024 a series of offensives from a coalition of opposition forces led to the capture of Damascus and the fall of Assad s regime A country of fertile plains high mountains and deserts Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups Arabs are the largest ethnic group and Sunni Muslims are the largest religious group Up until the capture of Damascus by rebel forces it was the only country governed by neo Ba athists The neo Ba athist government was a totalitarian dictatorship with a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family and attracted widespread condemnation for its severe domestic repression and war crimes Prior to the fall of Assad Syria was ranked fourth worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index and it was one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists Freedom of the press was extremely limited and the country was ranked second worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index It was the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked the second worst globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index Syria had also become the epicentre of an Assad sponsored Captagon industry exporting billions of dollars worth of the illicit drug annually making it one of the largest narco states in the world EtymologySeveral sources indicate that the name Syria is derived from the 8th century BC Luwian term Sura i and the derivative ancient Greek name Syrioi Syrioi or Syroi Syroi both of which originally derived from Assur Assyria in northern Mesopotamia present day Iraq and north eastern Syria However from the Seleucid Empire 323 150 BC this term was also applied to the Levant and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favors the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀssyria Assyria ultimately derived from the Akkadian Assur The Greek name appears to correspond to Phoenician ʾsr Assur ʾsrym Assyrians recorded in the 8th century BC Cinekoy inscription The area designated by the word has changed over time Classically Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean between Arabia to the south and Asia Minor to the north stretching inland to include parts of Iraq and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including from west to east Commagene Sophene and Adiabene By Pliny s time however this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire but politically independent from each other Judaea later renamed Palaestina in AD 135 the region corresponding to modern day Israel the Palestinian territories and Jordan in the extreme southwest Phoenice established in 194 corresponding to modern Lebanon Damascus and Homs regions Coele Syria or Hollow Syria and south of the Eleutheris river HistoryAncient antiquity Female figurine 5000 BC Ancient Orient Museum The Natufian culture was the first to become sedentary around the 11th millennium BC and became one of the centers of Neolithic culture known as Pre Pottery Neolithic A where agriculture and cattle breeding first began to appear The site of Tell Qaramel has several round stone towers dated to 10650 BC making them the oldest structures of this kind in the world The Neolithic period Pre Pottery Neolithic B is represented by rectangular houses of Mureybet culture At the time people used containers made of stone gyps and burnt lime Vaisselle blanche The discovery of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade The ancient cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth perhaps preceded by only that of Mesopotamia Ishqi Mari king of the Second Kingdom of Mari circa 2300 BC The earliest recorded indigenous civilization in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present day Idlib northern Syria Ebla appears to have been founded around 3500 BC and gradually built its fortune through trade with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer Assyria and Akkad as well as with the Hurrian and Hattian peoples to the northwest in Asia Minor Gifts from Pharaohs found during excavations confirm Ebla s contact with Egypt One of the earliest written texts from Syria is a trading agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c 2300 BC This is known as the Treaty between Ebla and Abarsal Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages after Akkadian Recent classifications of the Eblaite language have shown that it was an East Semitic language closely related to the Akkadian language Ebla was weakened by a long war with Mari and the whole of Syria became part of the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire after Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram Sin s conquests ended Eblan domination over Syria in the first half of the 23rd century BC By the 21st century BC Hurrians settled in the northern east parts of Syria while the rest of the region was dominated by the Amorites Syria was called the Land of the Amurru Amorites by their Assyro Babylonian neighbors The Northwest Semitic Amorite language is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages Mari reemerged during this period until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon Ugarit also arose during this time circa 1800 BC close to modern Latakia Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages and developed the Ugaritic alphabet considered to be the world s earliest known alphabet The Ugaritic kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC in what was known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse Aleppo and Damascus are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world Yamhad modern Aleppo dominated northern Syria for two centuries although eastern Syria was occupied in the 19th and 18th centuries BC by the Old Assyrian Empire ruled by the Amorite dynasty of Shamshi Adad I and by the Babylonian Empire which was founded by Amorites Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh Qatna the Hurrians states and the Euphrates valley down to the borders with Babylon The army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Der on the border of Elam modern Iran Yamhad was conquered and destroyed along with Ebla by the Hittites from Asia Minor circa 1600 BC From this time Syria became a battle ground for various foreign empires these being the Hittite Empire Mitanni Empire Egyptian Empire Middle Assyrian Empire and to a lesser degree Babylonia The Egyptians initially occupied much of the south while the Hittites and the Mitanni occupied much of the north However Assyria eventually gained the upper hand destroying the Mitanni Empire and annexing huge swathes of territory previously held by the Hittites and Babylon Syrians bringing presents to Pharaoh Tuthmosis III as depicted in the tomb of Rekhmire circa 1450 BCE actual painting and interpretational drawing They are labeled Chiefs of Retjenu Around the 14th century BC various Semitic people appeared in the area such as the semi nomadic Suteans who came into an unsuccessful conflict with Babylonia to the east and the West Semitic speaking Arameans who subsumed the earlier Amorites They too were subjugated by Assyria and the Hittites for centuries The Egyptians fought the Hittites for control over western Syria the fighting reached its zenith in 1274 BC with the Battle of Kadesh The west remained part of the Hittite empire until its destruction c 1200 BC while eastern Syria largely became part of the Middle Assyrian Empire who also annexed much of the west during the reign of Tiglath Pileser I 1114 1076 BC With the destruction of the Hittites and the decline of Assyria in the late 11th century BC the Aramean tribes gained control of much of the interior founding states such as Bit Bahiani Aram Damascus Hamath Aram Rehob Aram Naharaim and Luhuti From this point the region became known as Aramea or Aram There was also a synthesis between the Semitic Arameans and the remnants of the Indo European Hittites with the founding of a number of Syro Hittite states centered in north central Aram Syria and south central Asia Minor modern Turkey including Palistin Carchemish and Sam al Amrit Phoenician Temple A Canaanite group known as the Phoenicians came to dominate the coasts of Syria and also Lebanon and northern Palestine from the 13th century BC founding city states such as Amrit Simyra Arwad Paltos Ramitha and Shuksi From these coastal regions they eventually spread their influence throughout the Mediterranean including building colonies in Malta Sicily the Iberian peninsula and the coasts of North Africa and most significantly founding the major city state of Carthage in the 9th century BC which was much later to become the center of a major empire rivaling the Roman Republic Syria and the western half of Near East then fell to the vast Neo Assyrian Empire 911 BC 605 BC The Assyrians introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of their empire This language was to remain dominant in Syria and the entire Near East until after the Islamic conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries AD and was to be a vehicle for the spread of Christianity The Assyrians named their colonies of Syria and Lebanon Eber Nari Assyrian domination ended after the Assyrians greatly weakened themselves in a series of brutal internal civil wars followed by attacks from the Medes Babylonians Chaldeans Persians Scythians and Cimmerians During the fall of Assyria the Scythians ravaged and plundered much of Syria The last stand of the Assyrian army was at Carchemish in northern Syria in 605 BC The Assyrian Empire was followed by the Neo Babylonian Empire 605 BC 539 BC During this period Syria became a battle ground between Babylonia and another former Assyrian colony that of Egypt The Babylonians like their Assyrian relations were victorious over Egypt Classical antiquity Ancient city of Palmyra before the war Lands that constitute modern day Syria were part of the Neo Babylonian Empire and had been annexed by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC Led by Cyrus the Great the Achaemenid Persians retained Imperial Aramaic as one of the diplomatic languages of their empire as well as the Assyrian name for the new satrapy of Aram Syria Eber Nari Syria was conquered by the Macedonian Empire which was ruled by Alexander the Great c 330 BC and consequently became Coele Syria province of the Seleucid Empire 323 BC 64 BC with the Seleucid kings styling themselves King of Syria and the city of Antioch being its capital starting from 240 BC Thus it was the Greeks who introduced the name Syria to the region Originally an Indo European corruption of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia Iraq the Greeks used this term to describe not only Assyria itself but also the lands to the west which had for centuries been under Assyrian dominion Thus in the Greco Roman world both the Arameans of Syria and the Assyrians of Mesopotamia modern day Iraq to the east were referred to as Syrians or Syriacs despite these being distinct peoples in their own right a confusion which would continue into the modern world Eventually parts of southern Seleucid Syria were taken by the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty upon the slow disintegration of the Hellenistic Empire Syria briefly came under Armenian control from 83 BC with the conquests of the Armenian king Tigranes the Great who was welcomed as a savior from the Seleucids and Romans by the Syrian people However Pompey the Great a general of the Roman Empire rode to Syria and captured Antioch and turned Syria into a Roman province in 64 BC thus ending Armenian control over the region which had lasted two decades Syria prospered under Roman rule being strategically located on the Silk Road which gave it massive wealth and importance making it the battleground for the rivaling Romans and Persians Roman Theatre at Bosra in the province of Arabia present day SyriaTemple of Jupiter Damascus Palmyra a rich and sometimes powerful native Aramaic speaking kingdom arose in northern Syria in the 2nd century the Palmyrene established a trade network that made the city one of the richest in the Roman Empire In the late 3rd century the Palmyrene king Odaenathus defeated the Persian emperor Shapur I and controlled the entirety of the Roman East while his successor and widow Zenobia established the Palmyrene Empire which briefly conquered Egypt Syria Palestine much of Asia Minor Judah and Lebanon before being finally brought under Roman control in 273 The northern Mesopotamian Assyrian kingdom of Adiabene controlled areas of north east Syria between 10 and 117 before it was conquered by Rome The Aramaic language has been found as far afield as Hadrian s Wall in Roman Britain with an inscription written by a Palmyrene emigrant at the site of Fort Arbeia Control of Syria eventually passed from the Romans to the Byzantines with the split in the Roman Empire The largely Aramaic speaking population of Syria during the heyday of the Byzantine Empire was probably not exceeded again until the 19th century Prior to the Arab Islamic Conquest in the 7th century the bulk of the population were Arameans but Syria was also home to Greek and Roman ruling classes Assyrians still dwelt in the north east Phoenicians along the coasts and Jewish and Armenian communities were also extant in major cities with Nabateans and pre Islamic Arabs such as the Lakhmids and Ghassanids dwelling in the deserts of southern Syria Syriac Christianity had taken hold as the major religion although others still followed Judaism Mithraism Manicheanism Greco Roman Religion Canaanite Religion and Mesopotamian Religion Syria s large and prosperous population made Syria one of the most important of the Roman and Byzantine provinces particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD The ancient city of Apamea an important commercial center and one of Syria s most prosperous cities in classical antiquity Syrians held considerable power during the Severan dynasty The matriarch of the family and empress of Rome as wife of emperor Septimius Severus was Julia Domna a Syrian from the city of Emesa modern day Homs whose family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the god El Gabal Her great nephews also Arabs from Syria would also become Roman emperors the first being Elagabalus and the second his cousin Alexander Severus Another Roman emperor who was a Syrian was Philip the Arab Marcus Julius Philippus who was born in Roman Arabia He was emperor from 244 to 249 and ruled briefly during the Crisis of the Third Century During his reign he focused on his home town of Philippopolis modern day Shahba and began many construction projects to improve the city most of which were halted after his death Syria is significant in the history of Christianity Saul of Tarsus better known as the Apostle Paul was converted on the road to Damascus and emerged as a significant figure in the Christian Church at Antioch in ancient Syria Middle Ages Muhammad s first interaction with the people of Syria was during the invasion of Dumatul Jandal in July 626 where he ordered his followers to invade Duma because Muhammad received intelligence that some tribes there were involved in highway robbery and were preparing to attack Medina William Montgomery Watt claims that this was the most significant expedition Muhammad ordered at the time even though it received little notice in the primary sources Dumat Al Jandal was 800 kilometres 500 mi from Medina and Watt says that there was no immediate threat to Muhammad other than the possibility that his communications to Syria and supplies to Medina would be interrupted Watt says It is tempting to suppose that Muhammad was already envisaging something of the expansion which took place after his death and that the rapid march of his troops must have impressed all those who heard of it William Muir also believes that the expedition was important as Muhammad followed by 1 000 men reached the confines of Syria where distant tribes had learnt his name while the political horizon of Muhammad was extended The Umayyad Mosque built in the early 8th centuryUmayyad fresco from Qasr al Hayr al Gharbi built in the early 7th century By 640 Syria was conquered by the Rashidun army led by Khalid ibn al Walid In the mid 7th century the Umayyad dynasty placed the capital of the empire in Damascus The country s power declined during later Umayyad rule this was mainly through totalitarianism corruption and the resulting revolutions The Umayyad dynasty was overthrown in 750 by the Abbasid dynasty which moved the capital of empire to Baghdad Arabic made official under Umayyad rule became the dominant language replacing Greek and Aramaic of the Byzantine era In 887 the Egypt based Tulunids annexed Syria from the Abbasids and were later replaced by the Egypt based Ikhshidids and then by the Hamdanids originating in Aleppo founded by Sayf al Dawla The 1299 Battle of Wadi al Khazandar The Mongols under Ghazan defeated the Mamluks Sections of Syria were held by French English Italian and German overlords between 1098 and 1189 during the Crusades and were known collectively as the Crusader states among which the primary one in Syria was the Principality of Antioch The coastal mountainous region was occupied in part by the Nizari Ismailis the so called Assassins who had intermittent confrontations and truces with the Crusader States Later in history when the Nizaris faced renewed Frankish hostilities they received timely assistance from the Ayyubids After a century of Seljuk rule Syria was largely conquered 1175 1185 by the Kurdish liberator Salah ad Din founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt Aleppo fell to the Mongols of Hulegu in January 1260 Damascus fell in March but then Hulegu was forced to break off his attack to return to China to deal with a succession dispute A few months later the Mamluks arrived with an army from Egypt and defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut in Galilee The Mamluk leader Baibars made Damascus a provincial capital When he died power was taken by Qalawun In the meantime an emir named Sunqur al Ashqar had tried to declare himself ruler of Damascus but he was defeated by Qalawun on 21 June 1280 and fled to northern Syria Al Ashqar who had married a Mongol woman appealed for help from the Mongols The Mongols of the Ilkhanate took Aleppo in October 1280 but Qalawun persuaded Al Ashqar to join him and they fought against the Mongols on 29 October 1281 in the Second Battle of Homs which was won by the Mamluks In 1400 the Muslim Turco Mongol conqueror Tamurlane invaded Syria in which he sacked Aleppo and captured Damascus after defeating the Mamluk army The city s inhabitants were massacred except for the artisans who were deported to Samarkand Tamurlane conducted massacres of the Assyrian Christian population greatly reducing their numbers By the end of the 15th century the discovery of a sea route from Europe to the Far East ended the need for an overland trade route through Syria Ottoman Syria Tartus in Ottoman Syria from an 1810 illustration by Luigi MayerGate of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus by Gustav Bauernfeind 1890 In 1516 the Ottoman Empire invaded the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt conquering Syria and incorporating it into its empire The Ottoman system was not burdensome to Syrians because the Turks respected Arabic as the language of the Quran and accepted the mantle of defenders of the faith Damascus was made the major entrepot for Mecca and as such it acquired a holy character to Muslims because of the beneficial results of the countless pilgrims who passed through on the hajj Ottoman administration followed a system that led to peaceful coexistence Each ethno religious minority Arab Shia Muslim Arab Sunni Muslim Syriac Orthodox Greek Orthodox Maronite Christians Assyrian Christians Armenians Kurds and Jews constituted a millet The religious heads of each community administered all personal status laws and performed certain civil functions as well In 1831 Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt renounced his loyalty to the empire and overran Ottoman Syria capturing Damascus His short term rule over the domain attempted to change the demographics and social structure of the region he brought thousands of Egyptian villagers to populate the plains of southern Syria rebuilt Jaffa and settled it with veteran Egyptian soldiers aiming to turn it into a regional capital and he crushed peasant and Druze rebellions and deported non loyal tribesmen By 1840 however he had to surrender the area back to the Ottomans From 1864 Tanzimat reforms were applied on Ottoman Syria carving out the provinces vilayets of Aleppo Zor Beirut and Damascus Vilayet Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon was created and soon after the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was given a separate status Armenian deportees near Aleppo during the Armenian genocide 1915 During World War I the Ottoman Empire entered the conflict as a Central Power It ultimately suffered defeat and loss of control of the entire Near East to the British Empire and French Empire During the conflict genocide against indigenous Christian peoples was carried out by the Ottomans and their allies in the form of the Armenian genocide and Assyrian genocide of which Deir ez Zor in Ottoman Syria was the final destination of these death marches In the midst of World War I two Allied diplomats Frenchman Francois Georges Picot and Briton Mark Sykes secretly agreed on the post war division of the Ottoman Empire into respective zones of influence in the Sykes Picot Agreement of 1916 Initially the two territories were separated by a border that ran in an almost straight line from Jordan to Iran However the discovery of oil in the region of Mosul just before the end of the war led to yet another negotiation with France in 1918 to cede this region to the British zone of influence which was to become Iraq The fate of the intermediate province of Zor was left unclear its occupation by Arab nationalists resulted in its attachment to Syria This border was recognized internationally when Syria became a League of Nations mandate in 1920 and has not changed to date French Mandate The inauguration of President Hashim al Atassi in 1936 In 1920 a short lived independent Kingdom of Syria was established under Faisal I of the Hashemite family However his rule over Syria ended after only a few months following the Battle of Maysalun French troops occupied Syria later that year after the San Remo conference proposed that the League of Nations put Syria under a French mandate General Gouraud had according to his secretary de Caix two options Either build a Syrian nation that does not exist by smoothing the rifts which still divide it or cultivate and maintain all the phenomena which require our arbitration that these divisions give De Caix added I must say only the second option interests me This is what Gouraud did In 1925 Sultan al Atrash led a revolt that broke out in the Druze Mountain and spread to engulf the whole of Syria and parts of Lebanon Al Atrash won several battles against the French notably the Battle of al Kafr on 21 July 1925 the Battle of al Mazraa on 2 3 August 1925 and the battles of Salkhad al Musayfirah and Suwayda France sent thousands of troops from Morocco and Senegal leading the French to regain many cities although resistance lasted until the spring of 1927 The French sentenced al Atrash to death but he had escaped with the rebels to Transjordan and was eventually pardoned He returned to Syria in 1937 after the signing of the Syrian French Treaty Syrian rebels in Ghouta during the Great Syrian Revolt against French colonial rule in the 1920s Syria and France negotiated a treaty of independence in September 1936 and Hashim al Atassi was the first president to be elected under the first incarnation of the modern republic of Syria However the treaty never came into force because the French Legislature refused to ratify it With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II Syria came under the control of Vichy France until the British and Free French occupied the country in the Syria Lebanon campaign in July 1941 Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalists and the British forced the French to evacuate their troops in April 1946 leaving the country in the hands of a republican government that had been formed during the mandate Independent Syrian Republic Upheaval dominated Syrian politics from independence through the late 1960s In May 1948 Syrian forces invaded Palestine together with other Arab states and immediately attacked Jewish settlements President Shukri al Quwwatli instructed his troops in the front to destroy the Zionists The invasion purpose was to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel Toward this end the Syrian government engaged in an active process of recruiting former Nazis including several former members of the Schutzstaffel to build up their armed forces and military intelligence capabilities Defeat in this war was one of several trigger factors for the March 1949 Syrian coup d etat by Colonel Husni al Za im described as the first military overthrow of the Arab World since the start of the Second World War This was soon followed by another overthrow by Colonel Sami al Hinnawi who was quickly deposed by Colonel Adib Shishakli all within the same year Aleppo in 1961 Shishakli eventually abolished multipartyism altogether but was overthrown in a 1954 coup and the parliamentary system was restored However by this time power was increasingly concentrated in the military and security establishment The weakness of Parliamentary institutions and the mismanagement of the economy led to unrest and the influence of Nasserism and other ideologies There was fertile ground for various Arab nationalist Syrian nationalist and socialist movements which represented disaffected elements of society Notably included were religious minorities who demanded radical reform In November 1956 as a direct result of the Suez Crisis Syria signed a pact with the Soviet Union This gave a foothold for communist influence within the government in exchange for military equipment Turkey then became worried about this increase in the strength of Syrian military technology as it seemed feasible that Syria might attempt to retake Iskenderun Only heated debates in the United Nations lessened the threat of war United Arab Republic Gamal Abdel Nasser at Aleppo 1960 On 1 February 1958 Syrian President Shukri al Quwatli and Egypt s Nasser announced the merging of Egypt and Syria creating the United Arab Republic and all Syrian political parties as well as the communists therein ceased overt activities Meanwhile a group of Syrian Ba athist officers alarmed by the party s poor position and the increasing fragility of the union decided to form a secret Military Committee its initial members were Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Umran Major Salah Jadid and Captain Hafiz al Assad Syria seceded from the union with Egypt on 28 September 1961 after a coup and terminated the political union Ba athist Syria The instability which followed the 1961 coup culminated in the 8 March 1963 Ba athist coup The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Ba ath Party led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al Din al Bitar The new Syrian cabinet was dominated by Ba ath members Since the 1963 seizure of power by its Military Committee the Ba ath party has ruled Syria as a totalitarian state Ba athists took control over country s politics education culture religion and surveilled all aspects of civil society through its powerful Mukhabarat secret police Syrian Arab Armed forces and secret police were integrated with the Ba ath party apparatus after the purging of traditional civilian and military elites by the regime Hafez al Assad president of Syria 1970 2000 The 1963 Ba athist coup marked a radical break in modern Syrian history after which Ba ath party monopolised power in the country to establish a one party state and shaped a socio political order by enforcing its state ideology On 23 February 1966 the neo Ba athist Military Committee carried out an intra party rebellion against the Ba athist Old Guard Aflaq and Bitar imprisoned President Amin al Hafiz and designated a regionalist civilian Ba ath government on 1 March Although Nureddin al Atassi became the formal head of state Salah Jadid was Syria s effective ruler from 1966 until November 1970 when he was deposed by Hafiz al Assad who at the time was Minister of Defense The coup led to the schism within the original pan Arab Ba ath Party one Iraqi led ba ath movement ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003 and one Syrian led ba ath movement was established In the first half of 1967 a low key state of war existed between Syria and Israel Conflict over Israeli cultivation of land in the Demilitarized Zone led to 7 April pre war aerial clashes between Israel and Syria When the Six Day War broke out between Egypt and Israel Syria joined the war and attacked Israel as well In the final days of the war Israel turned its attention to Syria capturing two thirds of the Golan Heights in under 48 hours The defeat caused a split between Jadid and Assad over what steps to take next Disagreement developed between Jadid who controlled the party apparatus and Assad who controlled the military The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat during the Black September also known as the Jordan Civil War of 1970 hostilities with Jordan reflected this disagreement The power struggle culminated in the November 1970 Syrian Corrective movement a bloodless military coup that installed Hafiz al Assad as the strongman of the government Assad transformed a Ba athist party state into a totalitarian dictatorship marked by his pervasive grip on the party armed forces secret police media education sector religious and cultural spheres and all aspects of civil society He assigned Alawite loyalists to key posts in the military forces bureaucracy intelligence and the ruling elite A cult of personality revolving around Hafiz and his family became a core tenet of Ba athist ideology which espoused that Assad dynasty was destined to rule perennially On 6 October 1973 Syria and Egypt initiated the Yom Kippur War against Israel The Israel Defense Forces reversed the initial Syrian gains and pushed deeper into Syrian territory The village of Quneitra was largely destroyed by the Israeli army In the late 1970s an Islamist uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood was aimed against the government Islamists attacked civilians and off duty military personnel leading security forces to also kill civilians in retaliatory strikes The uprising had reached its climax in the 1982 Hama massacre when more than 40 000 people were killed by Syrian military troops and Ba athist paramilitaries It has been described as the single deadliest act of violence perpetrated by any state upon its own population in modern Arab history In a major shift in relations with both other Arab states and the Western world Syria participated in the United States led Gulf War against Saddam Hussein The country participated in the multilateral Madrid Conference of 1991 and during the 1990s engaged in negotiations with Israel along with Palestine and Jordan These negotiations failed and there have been no further direct Syrian Israeli talks since Assad s meeting with U S President Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000 21st century Lebanese war civil war and fall of the Ba athist regime Hafiz al Assad died on 10 June 2000 His son Bashar al Assad was elected president in an election in which he ran unopposed His election saw the birth of the Damascus Spring and hopes of reform but by autumn 2001 the authorities had suppressed the movement imprisoning some of its leading intellectuals Instead reforms have been limited to some market reforms On 5 October 2003 Israel bombed a site near Damascus claiming it was a terrorist training facility for members of Islamic Jihad In March 2004 Syrian Kurds and Arabs clashed in al Qamishli Signs of rioting were seen in Qamishli and Hasakeh In 2005 Syria ended its military presence in Lebanon Assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005 led to international condemnation and triggered a popular Intifada in Lebanon known as the Cedar Revolution which forced the Assad regime to end its 29 year old military occupation in Lebanon On 6 September 2007 foreign jet fighters suspected as Israeli reportedly carried out Operation Orchard against a suspected nuclear reactor under construction by North Korean technicians Military situation in December 2015 Islamic State controlled territory is in grey The Syrian civil war is an ongoing internal violent conflict in Syria It is a part of the wider Arab Spring a wave of upheaval throughout the Arab World Public demonstrations across Syria began on 26 January 2011 and developed into a nationwide uprising Protesters demanded the resignation of Assad the overthrow of his government and an end to nearly five decades of Ba ath Party rule Since spring 2011 the Syrian government deployed the Syrian Army to quell the uprising and several cities were besieged though the unrest continued According to some witnesses soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were summarily executed by the Syrian Army The Syrian government denied reports of defections and blamed armed gangs for causing trouble Since early autumn 2011 civilians and army defectors began forming fighting units which began an insurgency campaign against the Syrian Army The insurgents unified under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and fought in an increasingly organized fashion however the civilian component of the armed opposition lacked an organized leadership Pro Assad demonstration in the capital Damascus after US led missile strikes in April 2018 Ranked 8th last on the 2024 Global Peace Index and 4th worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index Ba athist Syria was one of the most dangerous places for journalists Freedom of the press was extremely limited and the Assad regime was ranked 2nd worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index Ba athist Syria was also the most corrupt regime in the Middle East and was ranked the 2nd lowest globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index The country also became the epicentre of a multi billion dollar illicit drug cartel sponsored by the Assad regime which was the largest in the world By 2024 the Syrian civil war had resulted in more than 600 000 deaths with pro Assad forces causing more than 90 of the total civilian casualties Between March 2011 and March 2021 more than 306 000 civilians were killed in the civil war The war led to a massive refugee crisis with an estimated 7 6 million internally displaced people July 2015 UNHCR figure and over 5 million refugees July 2017 registered by UNHCR The war has also worsened economic conditions with more than 90 of the population living in poverty and 80 facing food insecurity The Arab League the United States the European Union states the Gulf Cooperation Council states and other countries have condemned the use of violence against the protesters China and Russia have avoided condemning the government or applying sanctions saying that such methods could escalate into foreign intervention However military intervention has been ruled out by most countries The Arab League suspended Syria s membership over the government s response to the crisis but sent an observer mission in December 2011 as part of its proposal for peaceful resolution of the crisis Military situation before the opposition offensives in late 2024 Territories controlled by the SDF and the United States yellow IS grey the Syrian Arab Armed Forces Russia and Iran red SNA and Turkey light green Hay at Tahrir al Sham white SFA and the United States teal In December 2024 violence flared up once again Rebel factions led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham HTS took control of Aleppo in a lightning offensive prompting a retaliatory airstrike campaign by Syrian regime forces supported by Russian aviation assets The strikes which targeted population centers and several hospitals in rebel held city of Idlib resulted in at least 25 deaths according to the White Helmets rescue group NATO issued a joint statement calling for the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure to prevent further displacement and ensure humanitarian access They stressed the urgent need for a Syrian led political solution in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 which advocates for dialogue between the Syrian government and opposition forces The rebel offensive which had begun on 27 November continued its advance into Hama province following their capture of Aleppo On 4 December fierce clashes erupted in Hama province as the Syrian army engaged rebel forces in a bid to halt their advance on the key city of Hama Government forces claimed to have launched a counteroffensive with air support pushing back rebel factions including HTS around six miles from the city However despite reinforcements the rebels captured the city on 5 December The fighting led to widespread displacement with nearly 50 000 people fleeing the area and over 600 casualties reported including 104 civilians Military situation after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 Territories controlled by the Syrian Armed Forces white and SOR pink Turkey and SNA light green the United States and SDF yellow IS grey the Syrian uncertain mixed red light grey the United States and SFA teal Rebel forces reached the outskirts of Homs on 5 December beginning a three day battle for the city Simultaneously an HTS coordinatedmass uprising led by a coalition of Druze tribes and opposition forces captured the southern cities of Suwayda and Daraa by 6 December and rapidly advanced northwards to encircle Damascus over the following day Homs was captured by rebel forces by the early morning of 8 December leaving no major regime strongholds between the rebel advance and Damascus itself Cut off from the Alawite heartland of Tartus and Latakia governorates faced with a rebel pincer from both north and south bearing down on Damascus and with no hope of foreign intervention from the regime s Russian and Iranian benefactors Assadist authority over remaining regime held territories rapidly disintegrated The Syrian Arab Armed Forces melted away as its soldiers abandoned their weapons and uniforms many deserting across the border to Iraq and Lebanon Opposition forces captured the capital Damascus on 8 December toppling Bashar al Assad s government and ending the Assad family s 53 year long rule over the country Assad fled to Moscow with his family where he was granted asylum Post Ba athist Syria Interim Period Syrian revolutionaries toppling a statue of Bassel al Assad in New Aleppo 30 November 2024 Following the fall of the Assad regime Assad s ninth prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al Jalali with support from the opposition and Ahmed al Sharaa remained at his post in a caretaker capacity until a transitional government led by Mohammed al Bashir was formed the following day Al Jalali called for fresh elections so that the Syrian people may choose their new leaders Prior to the fall of the Assad regime Mohammed al Bashir headed the Syrian Salvation Government SSG formed in the province of Idlib by Hay at Tahrir al Sham HTS the Islamist militant organization which led the overthrow of Assad in December 2024 In general the formation of the Transitional Government was scaling of the SSG to the whole of Syria as the composition of the new government was almost the same as of the one of the SSG According to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights critics and opponents of the HTS were subject to repression in forms of enforced disappearances and tortures Shortly after the fall of the Assad regime Israel commenced a ground invasion of the Purple Line buffer zone near the Golan Heights as well as commencing a series of airstrikes against Syrian military depots and naval bases The Israeli Defense Forces claims that it is destroying Ba athist military infrastructure including chemical weapons plants so that the rebels cannot use them A Tawhid flag is sometimes displayed by the transitional government in addition to the Independence Flag prior to the formation of the government Tawhid flags were used by HTS Despite the collapse of the Assad regime Turkish backed Syrian National Army fighters in northern Syria continued their offensive against U S backed SDF forces until a ceasefire was reached on 11 December The prime minister of the transitional government Mohammed al Bashir has promised to allow Christians and other minorities to continue practicing their religion without interference However this has been met with doubts as many rebel forces had previous connections to al Qaeda and the Islamic State The use of a variation of the Tawhid flag by the new government alongside the opposition flag also raised worries as it implies that the new state may be less secular Aisha al Dibs was appointed as the Minister of Women s Affairs on 22 December 2024 On 12 December 2024 a spokesman of the transitional government speaking to Agence France Presse said that during the government s three month term the constitution and parliament would be suspended and that a judicial and human rights committee would be established to review the constitution prior to making amendments GeographySyria is the twelfth most water stressed country in the world Syria s climate varies from the humid Mediterranean coast through a semi arid steppe zone to arid desert in the east The country consists mostly of arid plateau although the northwest part bordering the Mediterranean is fairly green Al Jazira in the northeast and Hawran in the south are important agricultural areas The Euphrates Syria s most important river crosses the country in the east Syria is one of the fifteen states that comprise the so called cradle of civilization Its land straddles the northwest of the Arabian plate Petroleum in commercial quantities was first discovered in the northeast in 1956 The most important oil fields are those of Rmelan near al Hasakah as well as al Omar and fields near Dayr az Zawr The fields are a natural extension of the Iraqi fields of Mosul and Kirkuk Petroleum became Syria s leading natural resource and chief export after 1974 Natural gas was discovered at the field of Jbessa in 1940 Biodiversity Syria contains four terrestrial ecoregions Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands Eastern Mediterranean conifer sclerophyllous broadleaf forests Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests and Mesopotamian shrub desert The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3 64 10 ranking it 144th globally out of 172 countries Government and politicsPost Ba athist Syria Syria is currently undergoing a political transition following the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024 A transitional government led by Mohammed al Bashir has been formed to govern the country initially until 1 March 2025 The Syrian constitution and parliament were suspended on 12 December 2024 for the duration of the transitional period Ahmed al Sharaa was named as transitional president on 29 January 2025 and an interim legislative council is expected to be formed to act as Syria s legislature until a new constitution is adopted Ba athist Syria 1963 2024 The Syrian Arab Republic was a presidential state that nominally permitted the candidacy of individuals who were not part of the Ba ath controlled National Progressive Front Despite this Syria remained a one party state with an extensive secret police apparatus that curtailed any independent political activity The constitution introduced unilaterally by the Assad regime without the participation of the Syrian opposition had bolstered its authoritarian character by bestowing extraordinary powers on the presidency and a Ba athist political committee continued to be responsible for authorization of political parties The ruling Arab Socialist Ba ath Party governed Syria as a totalitarian police state through its control of the Syrian military and security apparatus The 50th edition of Freedom in the World published by Freedom House in 2023 designated Syria as Worst of the Worst among the Not Free countries and gave it the lowest score 1 100 alongside South Sudan According to the 2012 Syrian constitution the President of Syria was the head of the Syrian state while the Prime Minister of Syria was nominally the head of government unreliable source although real power in the system lay with the presidency The legislature the People s Assembly was the body responsible for passing laws approving government appropriations and debating policy unreliable source In the event of a vote of no confidence by a simple majority the prime minister was required to tender the resignation of their government to the president unreliable source Since the rule of Hafez al Assad the Ba athist political system was centered around a comprehensive cult of personality focused on the al Assad family with Alawite loyalists of the Ba ath party dominating key positions in the military apparatus secret police and political establishment The executive branch consisted of the president two vice presidents the prime minister and the Council of Ministers cabinet The constitution required the president to be a Muslim but did not make Islam the state religion On 31 January 1973 Hafiz al Assad implemented a new constitution which led to a national crisis Unlike previous constitutions this one did not require that the President of Syria be a Muslim leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama Homs and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the traditional ulama They labelled Assad the enemy of Allah and called for a jihad against his rule The government survived a series of armed revolts led mostly by Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood between 1976 and 1982 through a series of repressions and massacres The constitution gave the president the right to appoint ministers to declare war and state of emergency to issue laws which except in the case of emergency require ratification by the People s Council to declare amnesty to amend the constitution and to appoint civil servants and military personnel According to the 2012 constitution the president was elected by Syrian citizens in a direct election Syria s legislative branch was the unicameral People s Council The People s Council primarily served as an institution to validate Syria s one party system and re affirm the legislative proceedings of the Arab Socialist Ba ath party There was no independent judiciary in Syria since all judges and prosecutors were required to be Ba athist appointees Syria s judicial branches include the Supreme Constitutional Court the High Judicial Council the Court of Cassation and the State Security Courts Islamic jurisprudence was a main source of legislation and Syria s judicial system had elements of Ottoman French and Islamic laws Syria had three levels of courts courts of first instance courts of appeals and the constitutional court the highest tribunal Religious courts handled questions of personal and family law The Supreme State Security Court was abolished by Bashar al Assad in 2011 As a result of the ongoing civil war various alternative governments were formed including the Syrian Interim Government the Democratic Union Party and localized regions governed by sharia Representatives of the Syrian Interim government were invited to take up Syria s seat at the Arab League in 2013 and was recognised as the sole representative of the Syrian people by several nations including the United States United Kingdom and France Protest against the Assad regime in the city of Homs 3 February 2012 Syria s elections are conducted through a sham process characterised by wide scale rigging repetitive voting and absence of voter registration and verification systems Parliamentary elections were held on 13 April 2016 in the government controlled areas of Syria for all 250 seats of Syria s unicameral legislature the Majlis al Sha ab or the People s Council of Syria Even before results had been announced several nations including Germany the United States and the United Kingdom have declared their refusal to accept the results largely citing it not representing the will of the Syrian people However representatives of the Russian Federation have voiced their support of this election s results Various independent observers and international organizations have denounced the Assad regime s electoral conduct as a scam with the United Nations condemning it as illegitimate elections with no mandate Electoral Integrity Project s 2022 Global report designated Syrian elections as a facade with the worst electoral integrity in the world alongside Comoros and Central African Republic Three alternative governments formed during the Syrian civil war the Syrian Interim Government formed in 2013 Rojava formed in 2016 and the Syrian Salvation Government formed in 2017 control northern areas of the country and operated independently of the Syrian Arab Republic Administrative divisions Syria is divided into 14 governorates which are subdivided into 61 districts which are further divided into sub districts No Governorate CapitalGovernorates of Syria1 Latakia Latakia2 Idlib Idlib3 Aleppo Aleppo4 Raqqa Raqqa5 Al Hasakah Al Hasakah6 Tartus Tartus7 Hama Hama8 Deir ez Zor Deir ez Zor9 Homs Homs10 Damascus Damascus11 Rif Dimashq Douma12 Quneitra Quneitra13 Daraa Daraa14 Al Suwayda Al SuwaydaAutonomous Administration of North and East Syria The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria AANES while de facto autonomous is not recognized by the country as such The AANES also known as Rojava consists of self governing sub regions in the areas of Afrin Jazira Euphrates Raqqa Tabqa Manbij and Deir Ez Zor The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian civil war in which its official military force the Syrian Democratic Forces SDF has taken part While entertaining some foreign relations the region is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria or any state though it has been recognized by the regional Catalan Parliament The AANES has widespread support for its universal democratic sustainable autonomous pluralist equal and feminist policies in dialogues with other parties and organizations Northeastern Syria is polyethnic and home to sizeable ethnic Kurdish Arab and Assyrian populations with smaller communities of ethnic Turkmen Armenians Circassians and Yazidis The supporters of the region s administration state that it is an officially secular polity with direct democratic ambitions based on an anarchistic feminist and libertarian socialist ideology promoting decentralization gender equality environmental sustainability social ecology and pluralistic tolerance for religious cultural and political diversity and that these values are mirrored in its constitution society and politics stating it to be a model for a federalized Syria as a whole rather than outright independence The region s administration has also been accused by some partisan and non partisan sources of authoritarianism and support of the Syrian government However despite this the AANES has been the most democratic system in Syria with direct open elections universal equality respecting human rights within the region as well as defense of minority and religious rights within Syria excessive citations In 2019 the SDF announced that it had reached an agreement with the Syrian Army which allowed the latter to enter the SDF held cities of Manbij and Kobani in order to dissuade a Turkish attack on those cities as part of the cross border offensive by Turkish and Turkish backed Syrian rebels The Syrian Army also deployed in the north of Syria together with the SDF along the Syrian Turkish border and entered into several SDF held cities such as Ayn Issa and Tell Tamer Following the creation of the Second Northern Syria Buffer Zone the SDF stated that it was ready to work cooperatively with the Syrian Army if a political settlement between the Syrian government and the SDF was achieved Foreign relations Diplomatic relations of SyriaBa athist era Ensuring national security increasing influence among its Arab neighbors and securing the return of the Golan Heights have been the primary goals of Syria s foreign policy At many points in its history Syria has seen virulent tension with its geographically cultural neighbors such as Turkey Israel Iraq and Lebanon Syria enjoyed an improvement in relations with several of the states in its region in the 21st century prior to the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war Since the ongoing civil war of 2011 and associated killings and human rights abuses Syria has been increasingly isolated from the countries in the region and the wider international community Diplomatic relations have been severed with several countries including Britain Canada France Italy Germany Tunisia Egypt Libya United States Belgium Spain and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf Map of world and Syria red with military involvement Countries that supported the government of Bashar al Assad Countries that supported the Syrian opposition From the Arab league Syria continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Algeria Egypt Iraq Lebanon Sudan and Yemen Following its violent suppression of the Arab Spring protests of the 2011 Syrian Revolution the Syrian government was suspended from the Arab League in November 2011 for over 11 years until its reinstatement in 2023 Syria also quit the Union for the Mediterranean After 11 years the Arab League readmitted Syria The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria in August 2012 citing deep concern at the massacres and inhuman acts perpetrated by forces loyal to Bashar al Assad International disputes In 1939 while Syria was still a French mandate the French allowed a plebiscite regarding the Sanjak of Alexandretta joining to Turkey as part of a treaty of friendship in World War II In order to facilitate this a faulty election was done in which ethnic Turks who were originally from the Sanjak but lived in Adana and other areas near the border in Turkey came to vote in the elections shifting the election in favor of secession Through this the Hatay Province of Turkey was formed The move by the French was very controversial in Syria and only five years later Syria became independent Despite the Turkish annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta the Syrian government has refused to recognize Turkish sovereignty over the region since Independence except for a short period in 1949 Golan Heights was occupied by Israel since the Six Day War The western two thirds of Syria s Golan Heights region are since 1967 occupied by Israel and were in 1981 effectively annexed by Israel whereas the eastern third is controlled by Syria with the UNDOF maintaining a buffer zone in between to implement the ceasefire of the Purple Line Israel s 1981 Golan annexation law is not recognized in international law The UN Security Council condemned it in Resolution 497 1981 as null and void and without international legal effect Since then General Assembly resolutions on The Occupied Syrian Golan reaffirm the illegality of Israeli occupation and annexation The Syrian government continues to demand the return of this territory In early 1976 Syria entered Lebanon beginning their 29 year military presence Syria entered on the invitation of Suleiman Franjieh the Maronite Christian president at the time to help aid the Lebanese Christian militias against the Palestinian militias Over the following 15 years of Lebanese civil war Syria fought for control over Lebanon The Syrian military remained in Lebanon until 2005 in response to domestic and international pressure after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri Another disputed territory is the Shebaa farms located in the intersection of the Lebanese Syrian border and the Israeli occupied Golan Heights The farms which are 11 km long and about 3 kilometers wide were occupied by Israel in 1981 along with rest of the Golan Heights Yet following Syrian army advances the Israeli occupation ended and Syria became the de facto ruling power over the farms Yet after Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 Hezbollah claimed that the withdrawal was not complete because Shebaa was on Lebanese not Syrian territory After studying 81 maps the United Nations concluded that there is no evidence of the abandoned farmlands being Lebanese Nevertheless Lebanon has continued to claim ownership of the territory Military A Syrian Army soldier manning a checkpoint outside of Damascus shortly after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war 2012A convoy of escaped Syrian soldiers of the Assad government is returning from Iraq after Fall of the Assad regime The President of Syria is commander in chief of the Syrian Armed Forces comprising some 400 000 troops upon mobilization The military is a conscripted force males serve 30 months in the military upon reaching the age of 18 The obligatory military service period is being decreased over time in 2005 from two and a half years to two years in 2008 to 21 months and in 2011 to year and a half The breakup of the Soviet Union long the principal source of training material and credit for the Syrian forces may have slowed Syria s ability to acquire modern military equipment It has an arsenal of surface to surface missiles In the early 1990s Scud C missiles with a 500 kilometre 310 mile range were procured from North Korea and Scud D with a range of up to 700 kilometres 430 miles is allegedly being developed by Syria with the help of North Korea and Iran according to Zisser Syria received significant financial aid from Arab states of the Persian Gulf as a result of its participation in the Persian Gulf War with a sizable portion of these funds earmarked for military spending Iran and Russia are biggest suppliers of military aid to the Assad led Syrian Government Human rights Wounded civilians arrive at a hospital in Aleppo October 2012 Prior to the fall of the Assad regime the situation for human rights in Syria has long been a significant concern among independent organizations such as Human Rights Watch who in 2010 referred to the country s record as among the worst in the world The 2011 Freedom House report ranked Syria Not Free in its annual Freedom in the World survey The Ba ath regime is a totalitarian dictatorship that has been internationally condemned for its domestic and political repression including summary executions massive censorship forced disappearances etc as well as numerous crimes against Syrian civilians perpetrated during the civil war such as massacres barrel bombings chemical attacks etc The authorities are accused of arresting democracy and human rights activists censoring websites detaining bloggers and imposing travel bans Arbitrary detention torture and disappearances are widespread Although Syria s constitution guarantees gender equality critics say that personal statutes laws and the penal code discriminate against women and girls Moreover it also grants leniency for so called honour killing As of 9 November 2011 during the uprising against President Bashar al Assad the United Nations reported that of the over 3 500 deaths over 250 deaths were children as young as two years old and that boys as young as 11 years old have been gang raped by security services officers People opposing President Assad s rule claim that more than 200 mostly civilians were massacred and about 300 injured in Hama in shelling by the government forces on 12 July 2012 In August 2013 the government was suspected of using chemical weapons against its civilians U S Secretary of State John Kerry said it was undeniable that chemical weapons had been used in the country and that al Assad s forces had committed a moral obscenity against his own people Make no mistake Kerry said President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world s most heinous weapon against the world s most vulnerable people Nothing today is more serious and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny The Emergency Law effectively suspending most constitutional protections was in effect from 1963 until 21 April 2011 It was justified by the government in the light of the continuing war with Israel over the Golan Heights In August 2014 UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay criticized the international community over its paralysis in dealing with the civil war gripping the country which by 2014 had resulted in 191 369 deaths with war crimes according to Pillay being committed with total impunity on all sides in the conflict Minority Alawites and Christians were targeted by Islamists and other groups Three years later in April 2017 the U S Navy carried out a missile attack against a Syrian air base which had allegedly been used to conduct a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians according to the U S government In November 2021 the U S Central Command called a 2019 airstrike that killed civilians in Syria legitimate The acknowledgement came after a New York Times investigation said the military had concealed the death of dozens of non combatants EconomyThis section needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information December 2024 Historical development of real GDP per capita in Syria since 1820Bank Al Sharq and the Blue Tower Hotel in Damascus As of 2015 update the Syrian economy relies upon inherently unreliable revenue sources such as dwindling customs and income taxes which are heavily bolstered by lines of credit from Iran Iran is believed to have spent between 6 billion and US 20 billion per year on Syria during the civil war The economy has contracted 60 and the Syrian pound has lost 80 of its value with the economy becoming part state owned and part war economy At the outset of the civil war Syria was classified by the World Bank as a lower middle income country In 2010 Syria remained dependent on the oil and agriculture sectors The oil sector provided about 40 of export earnings Proven offshore expeditions have indicated that large sums of oil exist on the Mediterranean Sea floor between Syria and Cyprus The agriculture sector contributes to about 20 of GDP and 20 of employment Oil reserves are expected to decrease in the coming years and Syria has become a net oil importer The government increasingly relies on credit from Iran Russia and China Al Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus in 2010 The economy is highly regulated by the government which has increased subsidies and tightened trade controls to assuage protesters and protect foreign currency reserves Long run economic constraints include foreign trade barriers declining oil production high unemployment rising budget deficits and increasing pressure on water supplies caused by heavy use in agriculture rapid population growth industrial expansion and water pollution The UNDP announced in 2005 that 30 of the population lives in poverty and 11 4 live below the subsistence level Syria s share in global exports has eroded gradually since 2001 The real per capita GDP growth was just 2 5 per year in the 2000 2008 period Unemployment is high at above 10 Poverty rates have increased from 11 in 2004 to 12 3 in 2007 In 2007 main exports included crude oil refined products raw cotton clothing fruits and grains The bulk of imports are raw materials essential for industry vehicles agricultural equipment and heavy machinery Earnings from oil exports as well as remittances from Syrian workers are the government s most important sources of foreign exchange Political instability poses a significant threat to future economic development Foreign investment has been constrained by violence government restrictions economic sanctions and international isolation Prior to the civil war the government hoped to attract new investment in the tourism natural gas and service sectors to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil and agriculture The government began to institute economic reforms aimed at liberalizing most markets but those reforms were slow and ad hoc and have been completely reversed since the outbreak of conflict A cove in Latakia in 2014 As of 2012 update the value of overall exports has been slashed by two thirds from the figure of US 12 billion in 2010 to only US 4 billion in 2012 Since 2012 oil and tourism industries in particular have been devastated with US 5 billion lost Reconstruction will cost as much as US 10 billion Sanctions have sapped the government s finances U S and European Union bans on oil imports which went into effect in 2012 are estimated to cost Syria about 400 million per month Around 40 of all employees in the tourism sector lost their jobs since the beginning of the war In May 2015 ISIS captured Syria s phosphate mines one of the Syrian government s last chief sources of income The following month ISIS blew up a gas pipeline to Damascus that was used to generate heating and electricity in Damascus and Homs the name of its game for now is denial of key resources to the regime an analyst stated In addition ISIS was closing in on Shaer gas field and three other facilities in the area Hayan Jihar and Ebla with the loss of these western gas fields having the potential to cause Iran to further subsidize the Syrian government Aleppo soap is a popular product of Syria Agrarian reform measures were introduced which consisted of three interrelated programs legislation regulating the relationship between agriculture laborers and landowners legislation governing the ownership and use of private and state domain land and directing the economic organization of peasants and measures reorganizing agricultural production under state control Despite high levels of inequality in land ownership these reforms allowed for more progress in redistribution of land from 1958 to 1961 than any other reforms in Syria s history since independence The first law passed Law 134 passed 4 September 1958 was in response to concern about peasant mobilization and expanding peasants rights This was designed to strengthen the position of sharecroppers and agricultural laborers in relation to land owners This law led to the creation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs which announced the implementation of new laws that would allow the regulation of working condition especially for women and adolescents set hours of work and introduce the principle of minimum wage for paid laborers and an equitable division of harvest for sharecroppers Furthermore it obligated landlords to honor both written and oral contracts established collective bargaining contained provisions for workers compensation health housing and employment services Law 134 was not designed strictly to protect workers It also acknowledged the rights of landlords to form their own syndicates Energy This section is an excerpt from Energy in Syria edit PumpjackEnergy in Syria is mostly based on oil and gas Some energy infrastructure was damaged by the Syrian civil war There is high reliance on fossil fuels for energy in Syria and electricity demand is projected to increase by 2030 especially for industry activity such as automation However conflict in Syria has caused electricity generation to decrease by nearly 40 in recent years due to plant destruction and fuel shortages Electricity access in daily life for Syrians has also been altered due to conflict Electricity to residents of Syria is largely provided by private diesel generators which is costly and limited in hours of use Conflict has increased household electricity expenditures while also decreasing household income Some households have since turned to solar energy as a supplementary source of energy though high costs limit widespread adoption Agriculture This section is an excerpt from Agriculture in Syria edit Despite the crisis in Syria agriculture remains a key part of the economy The sector still accounts for an estimated 26 percent of gross domestic product GDP and represents a critical safety net for the 6 7 million Syrians including those internally displaced who still remain in rural areas However agriculture and the livelihoods that depend on it have suffered massive losses Today food production is at a record low and around half the population remaining in Syria are unable to meet their daily food needs Until the mid 1970s agriculture in Syria was the primary economic activity in Syria At independence in 1946 agriculture including minor forestry and fishing was the most important sector of the economy and in the 1940s and early 1950s agriculture was the fastest growing sector Wealthy merchants from urban centers such as Aleppo invested in land development and irrigation The rapid expansion of the cultivated area and increased output stimulated the rest of the economy However by the late 1950s there was little land left that could easily be brought under cultivation During the 1960s agricultural output stagnated because of political instability and land reform Between 1953 and 1976 agriculture s contribution to GDP increased in constant prices by only 3 2 approximately the rate of population growth From 1976 to 1984 growth in agriculture declined to 2 a year and its importance in the economy declined as other sectors grew more rapidly In 1981 as in the 1970s 53 of the population was still classified as rural although movement to the cities continued to accelerate However in contrast to the 1970s when 50 of the labor force was employed in agriculture by 1983 agriculture employed only 30 of the labor force Furthermore by the mid 1980s unprocessed farm products accounted for only 4 of exports equivalent to 7 of non petroleum exports Industry commerce and transportation still depended on farm produce and related agro business but agriculture s preeminent position had clearly eroded By 1985 agriculture including a little forestry and fishing contributed only 16 5 to GDP down from 22 1 in 1976 By the mid 1980s the Syrian government had taken measures to revitalize agriculture The 1985 investment budget saw a sharp rise in allocations for agriculture including land reclamation and irrigation The government s renewed commitment to agricultural development in the 1980s by expanding cultivation and extending irrigation promised brighter prospects for Syrian agriculture in the 1990s During the Syrian Civil War the agricultural sector has witnessed a drop in producing all kinds of commodities such as wheat cotton and olives due to the lack of security and immigration of agricultural workforce especially in Al Hasakah Governorate and Aleppo Governorate Transport Expressway M5 near Al Rastan Syria has four international airports Damascus Aleppo Lattakia and Qamishli which serve as hubs for Syrian Air and are also served by a variety of foreign carriers The majority of Syrian cargo is carried by Syrian Railways citation needed As of 2024 there are no international rail services but high speed rail in Turkey is being extended close to the border The road network in Syria is 69 873 kilometres 43 417 miles long including 1 103 kilometres 685 miles of expressways The country also has 900 kilometres 560 miles of navigable but not economically significant waterways Internet and telecommunications Telecommunications in Syria are overseen by the Ministry of Communications and Technology In addition Syrian Telecom plays an integral role in the distribution of government internet access The Syrian Electronic Army serves as a pro government military faction in cyberspace and has been long considered an enemy of the hacktivist group Anonymous Because of internet censorship laws 13 000 internet activists were arrested in 2011 and 2012 Water supply and sanitation Syria is a semiarid country with scarce water resources The largest water consuming sector in Syria is agriculture Domestic water use stands at only about 9 of total water use A big challenge for Syria before the civil war was its high population growth in 2006 the growth rate was 2 7 leading to rapidly increasing demand for urban and industrial water Drug industry Prior to the fall of the Ba athist regime on 8 December 2024 Syria was home to a burgeoning illegal drugs industry run by associates and relatives of Bashar al Assad It mainly produced captagon an addictive amphetamine popular in the Arab world As of 2021 the export of illegal drugs eclipsed the country s legal exports leading the New York Times to call Syria the world s newest narcostate The drug exports allow the government to generate hard currency and bypass international sanctions Captagon is Syria s primary export valued at a minimum of US 3 4 billion annually surpassing the country s largest legal export olive oil which is valued at around US 122 million per year DemographicsHistorical populationsYearPop p a 19604 565 000 19706 305 000 3 28 19819 046 000 3 34 199413 782 000 3 29 200417 921 000 2 66 201121 124 000 2 38 201518 734 987 2 96 201918 528 105 0 28 2019 estimate Source Central Bureau of Statistics of the Syrian Arab Republic 2011 Most people live in the Euphrates River valley and along the coastal plain a fertile strip between the coastal mountains and the desert Overall population density before the civil war was about 99 per square kilometre 258 per square mile According to the World Refugee Survey 2008 published by the U S Committee for Refugees and Immigrants Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers numbering approximately 1 852 300 The vast majority of this population was from Iraq 1 300 000 but sizeable populations from Palestine 543 400 and Somalia 5 200 also lived in the country In what the UN has described as the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era by 2014 about 9 5 million Syrians half the population had been displaced since March 2011 4 million were outside the country as refugees By 2020 the UN estimated that over 5 5 million Syrians were living as refugees in the region and 6 1 million others were internally displaced Largest cities vte Largest cities or towns in Syria Syria Central Bureau of Statistics 2004 Census Rank Name Province Pop Rank Name Province Pop Aleppo Damascus 1 Aleppo Aleppo Governorate 2 132 100 11 Tartus Tartus Governorate 115 769 Homs Latakia2 Damascus Damascus 1 552 161 12 Jaramana Rif Dimashq Governorate 114 3633 Homs Homs Governorate 652 609 13 Douma Syria Rif Dimashq Governorate 110 8934 Latakia Latakia Governorate 383 786 14 Manbij Aleppo Governorate 99 4975 Hama Hama Governorate 312 994 15 Idlib Idlib Governorate 98 7916 Raqqa Raqqa Governorate 220 488 16 Daraa Daraa Governorate 97 9697 Deir ez Zor Deir ez Zor Governorate 211 857 17 Al Hajar al Aswad Rif Dimashq Governorate 84 9488 Hasakah Al Hasakah Governorate 188 160 18 Darayya Rif Dimashq Governorate 78 7639 Qamishli Al Hasakah Governorate 184 231 19 Suwayda As Suwayda Governorate 73 64110 Sayyidah Zaynab Rif Dimashq Governorate 136 427 20 Al Thawrah Raqqa Governorate 69 425 Ethnic groups Damascus traditional clothing Syrians are an overall indigenous Levantine people closely related to their immediate neighbors such as Lebanese Palestinians Jordanians and Jews Syria has a population of approximately 18 500 000 2019 estimate Syrian Arabs together with some 600 000 Palestinian not including the 6 million refugees outside the country make up roughly 74 of the population The indigenous Assyrians and Western Aramaic speakers number around 400 000 people with the Western Aramaic speakers living mainly in the villages of Ma loula Jubb adin and Bakh a while the Assyrians mainly reside in the north and northeast Homs Aleppo Qamishli Hasakah Many particularly the Assyrian group still retain several Neo Aramaic dialects as spoken and written languages The second largest ethnic group in Syria are the Kurds They constitute about 9 to 10 of the population or approximately 2 million people including 40 000 Yazidis Most Kurds reside in the northeastern corner of Syria and most speak the Kurmanji variant of the Kurdish language The third largest ethnic group are the Turkish speaking Syrian Turkmen Turkoman There are no reliable estimates of their total population with estimates ranging from several hundred thousand to 3 5 million The fourth largest ethnic group are the Assyrians 3 4 followed by the Circassians 1 5 and the Armenians 1 most of which are the descendants of refugees who arrived in Syria during the Armenian genocide Syria holds the 7th largest Armenian population in the world They are mainly gathered in Aleppo Qamishli Damascus and Kesab The ethno religious composition of Syria There are also smaller ethnic minority groups such as the Albanians Bosnians Georgians Greeks Persians Pashtuns and Russians However most of these ethnic minorities have become Arabized to some degree particularly those who practice the Muslim faith The largest concentration of the Syrian diaspora outside the Arab world is in Brazil which has millions of people of Arab and other Near Eastern ancestries Brazil is the first country in the Americas to offer humanitarian visas to Syrian refugees The majority of Arab Argentines are from either Lebanese or Syrian background Languages Arabic is the official language of the country Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast According to The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics in addition to Arabic the following languages are spoken in the country in order of the number of speakers Kurdish Turkish Neo Aramaic four dialects Circassian Chechen Armenian and finally Greek However none of these minority languages have official status Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Arabic and is still spoken among Assyrians and Classical Syriac is still used as the liturgical language of various Syriac Christian denominations Most remarkably Western Neo Aramaic is still spoken in the village of Ma loula as well as two neighboring villages 56 km 35 mi northeast of Damascus English and French are widely spoken as second languages but English is more often used Religion Great Mosque of Aleppo Islam is the largest and predominant religion in Syria comprising 87 of the population Sunni Muslims make up around 74 of the population and Sunni Arabs account for 59 60 Most Kurds 8 5 and most Turkmens 3 are Sunni while 3 of Syrians are Shia Muslims particularly Ismailis and Twelvers but there are also Arabs Kurds and Turkmens 10 are Alawites 10 are Christians the majority are Antiochian Greek Orthodox the rest are Syriac Orthodox Greek Catholic and other Catholic Rites Armenian Orthodox Assyrian Church of the East Protestants and other denominations and 3 Druzes Druze number around 500 000 and concentrate mainly in the southern area of Jabal al Druze According to the Association of Religion Data Archives ARDA 94 17 of Syrians are Muslims 79 19 are Sunnis and 14 10 are Shias including Alawites and 3 84 of Syrians are Christians as of 2020 update Because the Assad family is Alawite Alawites have historically dominated key government and military positions Christians numbering 1 2 million a sizable number of whom are found among Syria s population of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees are divided into several sects The Greek Orthodox make up 45 7 of the Christian population the Syriac Orthodox make up 22 4 the Armenian Orthodox make up 10 9 the Catholics including Greek Catholic Syriac Catholic Armenian Catholic Maronite Chaldean Catholic and Latin make up 16 2 Assyrian Church of the East and several smaller Christian denominations account for the remainder Many Christian monasteries also exist Many Christian Syrians belong to a high socio economic class As per one estimate the count of Christians affiliated with established denominations in Syria has dropped from approximately 2 5 million before the civil war to about 500 000 in 2023 Syria was once home to a substantial population of Jews with large communities in Damascus Aleppo and Qamishii Due to a combination of persecution in Syria and opportunities elsewhere the Jews began to emigrate in the second half of the 19th century to Great Britain the United States and Israel The process was completed with the establishment of Israel in 1948 The remaining Jewish population dwindled as a result of the civil war Today 100 Jews live in Syria The United States is home to a large Syrian Jewish community which is still considered as Syrian citizens by the Syrian government Education Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Aleppo University Education is free and compulsory from ages 6 to 12 Schooling consists of six years of primary education followed by a three year general or vocational training period and a three year academic or vocational program The second three year period of academic training is required for university admission Total enrollment at post secondary schools is over 150 000 The literacy rate of Syrians aged 15 and older is 90 7 for males and 82 2 for females UIS adult literacy rate of Syria Since 1967 all schools colleges and universities have been under close government supervision by the Ba ath Party There are six state universities in Syria and 15 private universities The top two state universities are Damascus University 210 000 students as of 2014 and University of Aleppo The top private universities in Syria are Syrian Private University Arab International University University of Kalamoon and International University for Science and Technology There are also many higher institutes in Syria like the Higher Institute of Business Administration which offer undergraduate and graduate programs in business Health This section needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information December 2024 In 2010 spending on healthcare accounted for 3 4 of the GDP In 2008 there were 14 9 physicians and 18 5 nurses per 10 000 inhabitants The life expectancy at birth was 75 7 years in 2010 or 74 2 years for males and 77 3 years for females CultureDabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions Syria is a traditional society with a long cultural history Importance is placed on family religion education self discipline and respect Syrians taste for the traditional arts is expressed in dances such as the al Samah the Dabkeh in all their variations and the sword dance Marriage ceremonies and the births of children are occasions for the lively demonstration of folk customs Literature Poet essayist and translator Adunis The literature of Syria has contributed to Arabic literature and has a proud tradition of oral and written poetry Syrian writers many of whom migrated to Egypt played a crucial role in the nahda or Arab literary and cultural revival of the 19th century Prominent contemporary Syrian writers include among others Adonis Muhammad Maghout Haidar Haidar Ghada al Samman Nizar Qabbani and Zakariyya Tamer Ba ath Party rule has brought about renewed censorship In this context the genre of the historical novel spearheaded by Nabil Sulayman Fawwaz Haddad Khyri al Dhahabi and Nihad Siris is sometimes used as a means of expressing dissent critiquing the present through a depiction of the past Syrian folk narrative as a subgenre of historical fiction is imbued with magical realism and is also used as a means of veiled criticism of the present Salim Barakat a Syrian emigre living in Sweden is one of the leading figures of the genre Contemporary Syrian literature also encompasses science fiction and futuristic utopiae Nuhad Sharif Talib Umran which may also serve as media of dissent Music The Syrian music scene in particular that of Damascus has long been among the Arab world s most important especially in the field of classical Arab music Syria has produced several pan Arab stars including Asmahan Farid al Atrash and singer Lena Chamamyan The city of Aleppo is known for its muwashshah a form of Andalous sung poetry popularized by Sabri Moudallal as well as for popular stars like Sabah Fakhri Media Suzan Najm Aldeen Syrian actress Television was introduced to Syria and Egypt in 1960 when both were part of the United Arab Republic It broadcast in black and white until 1976 Syrian soap operas have considerable market penetration throughout the eastern Arab world Nearly all of Syria s media outlets are state owned and the Ba ath Party controls nearly all newspapers The authorities operate several intelligence agencies among them Shu bat al Mukhabarat al Askariyya employing many operatives During the civil war many of Syria s artists poets writers and activists have been incarcerated and some have been killed including famed cartoonist Akram Raslan Cuisine Fattoush a Syrian bread salad Syrian cuisine is rich and varied in its ingredients linked to the regions where a specific dish has originated Syrian food mostly consists of southern Mediterranean Greek and Southwest Asian dishes Some Syrian dishes also evolved from Turkish and French cooking dishes like shish kebab stuffed zucchini courgette and yabraʾ stuffed grape leaves the word yabraʾ deriving from the Turkish word yaprak meaning leaf The main dishes are kibbeh hummus tabbouleh fattoush labneh shawarma mujaddara shanklish pastirma sujuk and baklava Baklava is made of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey Syrians often serve selections of appetizers known as meze before the main course Za atar minced beef and cheese manakish are popular hors d œuvres The Arabic flatbread khubz is always eaten together with meze Drinks vary depending on the time of day and the occasion Arabic coffee is the most well known hot drink usually prepared in the morning at breakfast or in the evening It is usually served for guests or after food Arak an alcoholic drink is a well known beverage served mostly on special occasions Other Syrian beverages include ayran jallab white coffee and a locally manufactured beer called Al Shark See alsoIndex of Syria related articles Outline of SyriaNotesSpoken by Kurdish population and has an official status in Kurdish led SDF controlled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria AANES Spoken by Turkmen population Spoken by Assyrian population and it is a regional official language as Syriac in Jazira Region of AANES also traditionally spoken in Maaloula Jubb adin and Al Sarkha Arabic س ور ي ة romanized Suriyah or س ور ي ا Suriya Arabic ا ل ج م ه ور ي ة ٱل ع ر ب ي ة ٱل س و ر ي ة romanized al Jumhuriyyah al ʿArabiyyah as Suriyyah Sources Islamic bloc suspends Syria membership over crisis DW News 16 August 2012 Archived from the original on 27 June 2018 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation suspends Syria Ahram Online 16 August 2012 Archived from the original on 1 July 2018 OIC Suspends Syria Over Crackdown RFE RL 16 August 2012 Archived from the original on 8 February 2023 Sources The name Rojava The West was initially used by the region s PYD led government before its usage was dropped in 2016 Since then the name is still used by locals and international observers ReferencesBehnstedt Peter 2008 Syria In Versteegh Kees Eid Mushira Elgibali Alaa Woidich Manfred Zaborski Andrzej eds Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Vol 4 Brill Publishers p 402 ISBN 978 90 04 14476 7 Syria People and society The World Factbook CIA 10 May 2022 Archived from the original on 3 February 2021 Retrieved 30 December 2021 Syria 10 03 Syria s Religious Ethnic Groups 20 December 2012 Khalifa Mustafa 2013 The impossible partition of Syria Arab Reform Initiative 3 5 Arabs constitute the major ethnic group in Syria making up between 80 and 85 of the population Kurds are the second largest ethnic group in Syria making up around 10 of the Syrian population and distributed among four regions with a Yazidi minority that numbers around 40 000 Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in Syria making up around 4 5 of the population Some estimations indicate that they are the second biggest group outnumbering Kurds drawing on the fact that Turkmen are divided into two groups the rural Turkmen who make up 30 of the Turkmen in Syria and have kept their mother tongue and the urban Turkmen who have become Arabised and no longer speak their mother language Assyrians are the fourth largest ethnic group in Syria They represent the original and oldest inhabitants of Syria today making up around 3 4 of the Syrian population Circassians are the fifth largest ethnic group in Syria making up around 1 5 of the population Armenians are sixth largest ethnic group in Syria making up around 1 of the population There are also a small number of other ethnic groups in Syria including Greeks Persians Albanians Bosnian Pashtuns Russians and Georgians Shoup John A 2018 The History of Syria ABC CLIO p 6 ISBN 978 1440858352 Syria has several other ethnic groups the Kurds they make up an estimated 9 percent Turkomen comprise around 4 5 percent of the total population The rest of the ethnic mix of Syria is made of Assyrians about 4 percent Armenians about 2 percent and Circassians about 1 percent Religious Demographics of Syria Association of Religion Data Archives Retrieved 12 December 2024 Why Syria s reconstruction may depend on the fate of its minorities 18 December 2024 Syrian ministry of foreign affairs Archived from the original on 11 May 2012 Syria Population Datacommons org Retrieved 9 January 2025 Syria The World Factbook Central Intelligence Agency Archived from the original on 3 February 2021 Retrieved 7 April 2021 World Bank GINI index World Bank Archived from the original on 9 February 2015 Retrieved 22 January 2013 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2023 24 PDF United Nations Development Programme United Nations Development Programme 13 March 2024 pp 274 277 Archived PDF from the original on 1 May 2024 Retrieved 3 May 2024 Prime Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic Syrian transitional government Retrieved 11 December 2024 Regional group votes to suspend Syria rebels claim downing of jet CNN 14 August 2012 Archived from the original on 15 August 2012 Retrieved 14 August 2012 Al Khalidi Suleiman Azhari Timour 8 December 2024 Syrian rebels topple Assad transforming Middle East Reuters Rollinger Robert 2006 The terms Assyria and Syria again Journal of Near Eastern Studies 65 4 284 287 doi 10 1086 511103 ISSN 0022 2968 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