Syria Map

Syria stretches from a short Mediterranean coastline east to the Euphrates valley and the Iraqi border. Its area is usually given as 185,180 square kilometers, a figure that includes the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967 and annexed in 1981; that annexation is not recognized by the UN or most states, although the United States recognized it in 2019. About 25.6 million people live in Syria (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate), a figure that has been shifting with refugee movements since 2011 and returns since 2024. The country is divided into 14 governorates (muhafazat), and its capital, Damascus, lies in an oasis at the foot of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.

From the coast to the desert

Syria's landscapes run in north-south bands. A narrow coastal plain around Latakia and Tartus is backed by the Coastal Mountains (Jabal al-Ansariyah), which catch most of the country's rain. Inland, the Orontes (Asi) river flows north through Homs and Hama toward Turkey. Along the Lebanese border runs the Anti-Lebanon range, whose southern end, Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh, 2,814 m), is Syria's highest point and straddles the borders with Lebanon and the Israeli-held Golan. South of Damascus lie the volcanic plateaus of the Hauran and Jabal al-Druze (Suwayda). East of these, the Syrian Desert (Badia) covers much of the country, with the oasis of Palmyra at its center.

The Euphrates enters from Turkey and flows southeast past Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor into Iraq; the Tabqa Dam, completed in 1973, holds back Lake Assad, the country's largest reservoir. North of the river, the Jazira plain around Hasakah and Qamishli, watered by the Khabur, has been Syria's main wheat belt and its oil-producing region.

Climate and seasons

The coast has a Mediterranean climate with wet winters; Damascus and Aleppo are dry, with hot summers and cold winter nights, and snow falls on the mountains. The desert east regularly passes 40°C in summer. Spring (March-May) and autumn are the mildest seasons. Years of drought, the worst around 2006-2010 and again in 2025, have hit farming in the northeast hard.

Major Cities

• Damascus - The capital, among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; the Umayyad Mosque in its walled old city dates from the early 8th century
• Aleppo - The main city of the north and historically Syria's commercial center, around a medieval citadel; much of its old city and covered souqs were damaged in fighting in 2012-2016
• Homs - The central crossroads where the road from Damascus meets the route west through the Homs Gap to the coast
• Latakia - The main port, with the ruins of ancient Ugarit just to the north
• Hama - On the Orontes, known for its wooden waterwheels (norias)
• Deir ez-Zor - The largest city on the Syrian Euphrates and the center of the oil-producing east

History behind the borders

Ugarit, near Latakia, produced one of the earliest known alphabets, written in cuneiform signs, around the 14th century BCE. Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), and the region was part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries until 1918. After World War I, France took a League of Nations mandate over Syria and Lebanon, separating Lebanon in 1920; the district of Alexandretta (Hatay) passed to Turkey in 1939, a change Syria long disputed. Syria became independent in 1946, briefly joined Egypt in the United Arab Republic (1958-61), and lost the Golan to Israel in 1967. The Ba'ath Party took power in 1963, and Hafez al-Assad (from 1970) and his son Bashar (from 2000) ruled until December 2024.

Protests in 2011 turned into a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced about half of the pre-war population. On 8 December 2024, an offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. Ahmed al-Sharaa was named transitional president in January 2025, and a constitutional declaration in March 2025 set a five-year transition. A transitional People's Assembly, partly chosen through indirect elections held between late 2025 and spring 2026 and partly appointed by the president, first met in July 2026. In January 2026 the government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed to integrate the SDF into state institutions. The transition has been marked by outbreaks of sectarian violence, notably on the coast in March 2025 and in Suwayda in July 2025. Israeli forces moved into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan after Assad's fall, and as of 2026 talks on a security arrangement were continuing without a deal. Most US and EU economic sanctions were lifted during 2025.

Arabic is the official language; Kurds, Armenians, Turkmen, Assyrians and Circassians are among the minorities, and a few villages near Maaloula still speak Western Aramaic. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, with Alawite, Christian, Druze and Ismaili communities. The country's six UNESCO World Heritage sites include the ancient cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Bosra, Palmyra, the Crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers, and the Byzantine-era "Dead Cities" of the northwest, all on UNESCO's list of sites in danger.