Syria

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Syrian Arab Republic

Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Homat el Diyar
Guardians of the Land


Capital
(and largest city) Damascus
36°18′E / 33.5°N 36.3°E / 33.5; 36.3
Official language(s) Arabic¹
Other common languages Neo-Aramaic languages, Armenian, Kurdish, Turkish
Demonym Syrian
Government Presidential single party republic under Emergency Law since 1963.
 -  President Bashar al-Assad
 -  Prime Minister Muhammad Naji al-Otari
 -  Speaker of Parliament Mahmoud al-Abrash
Independence from French mandate 
 -  Evacuation April 17, 1946 
Area
 -  Total 185,180 km² (88th)
71,479 sq mi 
 -  Water (%) 0.06
Population
 -  2009 estimate 21,906,000[1] (54th)
 -  Density 118.3/km² (101st)
306.5/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2008 estimate
 -  Total $94.563 billion[2] (64th)
 -  Per capita $4,756[2] (113th)
GDP (nominal) 2008 estimate
 -  Total $55.024 billion[2] (68th)
 -  Per capita $2,767[2] (111th)
HDI (2007) ▲ 0.742 (medium) (107th)
Currency Syrian pound (SYP)
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 -  Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Drives on the right
Internet TLD .sy
Calling code 963^2
1 Arabic (de jure), Syrian Arabic (de facto)
² 02 from Lebanon

Syria (pronounced /ˈsɪəriə/ SEER-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية‎ sūriyya or سوريا sūryā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.

The name Syria formerly comprised the entire region of the Levant, while the modern state encompasses the site of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire. Damascus is widely regarded as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.[3]

Modern Syria was created as a French mandate and attained independence in April 1946, as a parliamentary republic. The post-independence period was rocky, and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949-1970. Syria has been under Emergency Law since 1962, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered non-democratic.[4]

The country has been governed by the Baath Party since 1963, although actual power is concentrated to the presidency and a narrow grouping of military and political strongmen. Syria's current president is Bashar al-Assad, who won a referendum on extending his presidency for second term, garnering 97.62 percent of votes in 2007 and is the son of Hafez al-Assad, who held office from 1970 until his death in 2000.[5][6] Syria has played a major regional role, particularly through its central role in the Arab conflict with Israel, which since 1967 has occupied the Golan Heights, and by active involvement in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs.

The population is mainly Sunni Muslim, but with significant Alawite, Shia, Christian and Druze minorities. Since the 1960s, Alawite military officers have tended to dominate the country's politics. Ethnically, some 80% of the population is Arab, and the state is ruled by the Baath Party according to Arab nationalist principles, while approximately 20% belong to the Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian, Turkmen, and Circassians minorities.[6]

Etymology

The name Syria derives from ancient Greek name for Syrians, Σύριοι Syrioi, which the Greeks applied without distinction to the Assyrians.[7][8] A number of modern scholars argue that the Greek word is traced back to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, ultimately derived from the Akkadian 𒀸𒋗𒁺 Aššur.[9] While others believe that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon.[10]

The area designated by the word has changed over time. Classically, Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, between Egypt and Arabia to the south and Cilicia to the north, stretching inland to include Mesopotamia, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene.[11]

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 Palestine and Jordan) in the extreme southwest, Phoenicia corresponding to Lebanon, with Damascena to the inland side of Phoenicia, Coele-Syria (or "Hollow Syria") south of the Eleutheris river, and Mesopotamia.[12]

History

Eblan civilization

Around the excavated city of Ebla near Idlib city in northern Syria, discovered in 1975, a great Semitic empire spread from the Red Sea north to Turkey and east to Mesopotamia from 2500 to 2400 BC Ebla appears to have been founded around 3000 BC, and gradually built its empire through trade with the cities of Sumer and Akkad, as well as with peoples to the northwest.[13] Gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Ebla's contact with Egypt. Scholars believe the language of Ebla to be among the oldest known written Semitic languages, designated as Paleo-Canaanite.[13]

However, more recent classifications of the Eblaite language has shown that it was an East Semitic language, closely related to the Akkadian language.[14] The Eblan civilization was likely conquered by Sargon of Akkad around 2260 BC; the city was restored, as the nation of the Amorites, a few centuries later, and flourished through the early second millennium BC until conquered by the Hittites.[15]