60 Fun Facts About Syria

What is the official language of Syria?

Arabic is Syria's official language; most Syrians speak Levantine Arabic, while Mesopotamian Arabic dialects are heard in the north-east.

Syria's coastline lies on which sea?

The Mediterranean washes Syria's coastline; Latakia and Tartus are its main ports, and Arwad, off Tartus, is the country's only inhabited island.

Which country borders Syria to the north?

Turkey has invaded northern Syria repeatedly since 2016 to fight Kurdish forces, and hosts millions of Syrian refugees.

The Assad family's rule over Syria ended with the fall of the capital on which date?

Damascus fell on 8 December 2024, eleven days after Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham launched its offensive in the north-west; Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, ending more than five decades of family rule.

Who became Syria's transitional president in January 2025?

Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, led Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and was named transitional president on 29 January 2025, signing a five-year constitutional declaration that March.

Hafez al-Assad took power in the bloodless coup of November 1970 known as what?

The Corrective Movement was the name Hafez al-Assad gave his November 1970 coup, which ousted Salah Jadid; he ruled until his death in 2000, when his son Bashar succeeded him.

In which year did the Ba'ath Party seize power in Syria, beginning six decades of one-party rule?

The Ba'ath seized power on 8 March 1963; the state of emergency declared that day formally lasted until 2011, and party founders Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar were sidelined within a few years.

From 1958 to 1961 Syria merged with which country to form the United Arab Republic?

Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser dominated the union; Syrian officers including a young Hafez al-Assad secretly organised against it, and a coup in Damascus ended it in September 1961.

Which European power held the League of Nations mandate over Syria between the world wars?

France received the League of Nations mandate for Syria at the 1920 San Remo conference, after French troops crushed Faisal's short-lived Arab kingdom at the Battle of Maysalun that July.

The 1916 secret deal carving the Ottoman Middle East into British and French zones is named after which two diplomats?

Sykes and Picot, Britain's Mark Sykes and the French diplomat Francois Georges-Picot, drew their line, in Sykes's words, from 'the e in Acre to the last k in Kirkuk'; Mosul later moved to the British zone for its oil.

In which script did the scribes of Ugarit write their 14th-century BC tablets?

Cuneiform signs, pressed into clay with a stylus, were adapted at Ugarit into a 30-letter alphabet; the city near modern Latakia was destroyed around 1190 BC in the Bronze Age collapse.

The Bronze Age kingdom of Ebla, famed for its tablet archive, lay near which modern city?

Idlib governorate contains Tell Mardikh, the site of Ebla; its archive of thousands of clay tablets includes a treaty with the city of Abarsal from about 2300 BC.

Which queen of Palmyra rebelled against Rome in the 3rd century and briefly ruled into Egypt and Asia Minor?

Zenobia declared her son Vaballathus emperor and her armies reached Alexandria and Ancyra before Rome crushed the revolt in 272; she was afterwards paraded in golden chains in a Roman triumph.

Julia Domna, empress of Rome as wife of Septimius Severus, came from which Syrian city?

Emesa (Homs) was home to her family, hereditary priests of the sun god Elagabal; her great-nephews Elagabalus and Severus Alexander, grandsons of her sister Julia Maesa, both became emperor.

According to the New Testament, which apostle was converted on the road to Damascus?

Paul, then Saul of Tarsus, was blinded by a light on the way to arrest Damascus Christians (Acts 9) and regained his sight after Ananias laid hands on him in the city.

The Great Mosque of Damascus is traditionally held to contain the head of which biblical figure?

A shrine inside the prayer hall is said to hold the head of John the Baptist; the mosque, built in 706-715, replaced a Byzantine cathedral dedicated to him.

Which caliphate made Damascus its capital in the mid-7th century?

The Umayyad caliphs ruled from Damascus after Muawiya took power in 661, governing from Spain to the Indus; the Abbasids overthrew them in 750 and the capital later moved to Baghdad.

Krak des Chevaliers, one of the best-preserved medieval castles, was held from 1142 to 1271 by which order?

The Knights Hospitaller rebuilt the castle after receiving it in 1142; the Mamluk sultan Baibars took it in 1271, reportedly using a forged letter from their Grand Master ordering surrender.

Which Kurdish-born leader, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, conquered most of Syria between 1175 and 1185?

Saladin, born to a Kurdish family at Tikrit, took Damascus in 1174 and Aleppo in 1183; he died in Damascus in 1193 and his tomb lies in the old city.

Which conqueror sacked Aleppo in 1400 and deported the artisans of Damascus to Samarkand?

Tamerlane (Timur) took Aleppo in October 1400 and Damascus early in 1401, shipping its craftsmen to his capital Samarkand; Hulegu's Mongols had sacked both cities in 1260 before losing at Ain Jalut.

In which year did the Ottoman Empire conquer Syria from the Mamluks, beginning four centuries of rule?

Selim I's victory over the Mamluks at Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo, in August 1516 brought Syria under Ottoman rule, and Damascus became the main staging post for the hajj caravan to Mecca.

What did the three red stars on Syria's flag originally represent?

The states of Aleppo, Damascus and Deir ez-Zor were the units of mandate-era Syria marked by the stars on the 1932 independence flag, whose green, white and black stripes recall early caliphates; the opposition revived it during the civil war.

What is Syria's highest point?

Mount Hermon, known locally as Jabal al-Shaykh, rises to 2,814 metres at the southern end of Syria's western mountain border; its snowmelt feeds the springs of the River Jordan.

Which basalt plateau in south-west Syria has Israel occupied since the Six-Day War?

The Golan Heights, about two-thirds of which Israel captured in under 48 hours of fighting, were placed under Israeli law in 1981, and the United States recognised the annexation in 2019.

Which river, Syria's most important, crosses the east of the country on its way to Iraq?

The Euphrates crosses Syria for some 600 km, flowing south-east past Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor; the Tabqa Dam on it created Lake Assad, the country's largest reservoir.

How many governorates is Syria divided into?

Syria's 14 governorates, or muhafazat, range from the capital, which is a governorate in its own right, to Rif Dimashq, which surrounds it, and Homs, the largest by area.

Which ancient language survives in the village of Maaloula, north-east of Damascus?

Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Near East for roughly a thousand years until the Islamic conquests, survives in Maaloula as Western Neo-Aramaic, also spoken in the nearby villages of Bakh'a and Jubb'adin.

The Assad family belongs to which religious minority that came to dominate the army?

Alawites are about a tenth of the population, concentrated on the coast. Sunnis make up roughly three-quarters.

Who make up Syria's second-largest ethnic group, about a tenth of the population, mostly in the north-east?

Their Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces did much of the ground fighting against Islamic State with US air support.

Which community in Syria mostly descends from survivors of the 1915 Ottoman genocide?

Armenians reached Syria on Ottoman deportation marches that ended at Deir ez-Zor in the desert; their descendants formed large communities in Aleppo and Kesab, much reduced by emigration after 2011.

In February 1982 the Ba'athist regime crushed a Muslim Brotherhood uprising with a massacre in which city?

Hama was shelled and stormed for most of February 1982 by forces including Rifaat al-Assad's Defence Companies; estimates of the dead run from 2,000 to 40,000, with much of the old city levelled.

Syria ended its 29-year occupation of which neighbour in 2005, after Rafic Hariri's assassination?

Lebanon had hosted Syrian troops since they entered its civil war in 1976; after Hariri's killing in February 2005, the mass 'Cedar Revolution' protests in Beirut forced the last of them out that April.

The Syrian reactor destroyed in 2007 was allegedly being built by technicians from which country?

North Korea was identified by US intelligence as the partner behind the al-Kibar reactor, modelled on its Yongbyon plant; Israel only formally admitted the September 2007 strike in 2018.

The 2011 uprising against Assad was part of which wider wave of protests?

The Arab Spring reached Syria in March 2011, when the arrest of boys for anti-regime graffiti in Daraa sparked protests; army defectors announced the Free Syrian Army that July.

By May 2015 which group held roughly half of Syria's territory?

Islamic State took Palmyra on 21 May 2015 and made Raqqa its capital; a US-led coalition with local ground forces drove it from Raqqa in October 2017 and from its last Syrian enclave, Baghuz, in March 2019.

Which two foreign powers intervened militarily on Assad's side to keep him in power?

Russia and Iran propped up Assad: Iranian-backed militias and Hezbollah from 2012, then Russian air power from September 2015, which turned the battle for Aleppo; neither intervened when he finally fell.

Under Assad, Syria's largest export by value became which illegal amphetamine?

Captagon pills, sold under the name of a 1960s fenethylline medicine but typically containing amphetamine, were produced industrially in regime-held areas and smuggled to Gulf markets, a trade estimated at billions of dollars a year.

Aleppo soap, an olive-oil bar, is distinguished by the addition of oil from which plant?

Its Arabic name is simply 'bay laurel soap'. Aleppo is also known for muwashshah, a form of Andalusian sung poetry.

Historical 'Damascus steel' sword blades were prized for their strength and for what visual feature?

Wavy, water-like patterns on the blades came from crucible 'wootz' steel imported from India, whose carbide banding showed after etching; damascene inlay is a different craft altogether.

The covered Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus leads from Al-Thawra street to the plaza of which building?

The Umayyad Mosque stands at the souq's eastern end, where columns of the Roman Temple of Jupiter survive; the 600-metre covered market is named after the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II.

Which of these Syrian dishes is stuffed vine leaves?

Yabra, from the Turkish yaprak ('leaf'), is vine leaves rolled around rice and meat or a vegetarian filling; kibbeh is bulgur and minced meat, mujaddara lentils and rice, and shanklish a fermented cheese.

What is the aniseed-flavoured alcoholic drink traditionally served on special occasions in Syria?

Arak is distilled from grapes and flavoured with aniseed, turning milky white when water is added; it is poured at weddings and feasts alongside mezze, much like raki and ouzo nearby.

Ghada Shouaa won Syria's first Olympic gold medal at Atlanta 1996 in which event?

Heptathlon gold came with 6,780 points, well clear of the field; Shouaa had won the 1995 world title in Gothenburg and the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima.

Syria's national football team is nicknamed after which mountain overlooking Damascus?

Qasioun, the mountain above Damascus, gives the team its nickname 'Nusur Qasioun', the Eagles of Qasioun; they came within a play-off of the 2018 World Cup, losing to Australia in October 2017.

Which pen name does the Syrian-born poet Ali Ahmad Said Esber write under?

Adonis is the pen name of Ali Ahmad Said Esber, born near Latakia in 1930, who took it from the Greek-Phoenician myth; a perennial Nobel candidate, he won the Goethe Prize in 2011.

In which year did Syria's independence flag first fly as French troops finally withdrew?

The last French and British troops left on 17 April 1946, celebrated as Evacuation Day; Syria had already joined the United Nations as a founding member in October 1945.

In 1925 Sultan al-Atrash led a great revolt against the French that began among which community?

The Druze of Jabal al-Druze rose in July 1925 under Sultan al-Atrash; the revolt spread to Damascus, which the mandate authorities shelled, and was crushed by 1927 with colonial troops from Morocco and Senegal.

At which Syrian site did Egyptians and Hittites fight a huge chariot battle in 1274 BC?

Kadesh, on the Orontes near modern Homs, saw Ramesses II claim a victory that was really a draw; about 15 years later he and the Hittite king Hattusili III sealed the earliest peace treaty whose text survives from both sides.

In 64 BC which Roman general captured Antioch and made Syria a Roman province?

Pompey deposed the last Seleucid claimant, Antiochus XIII, in 64 BC and organised Syria as a province with Antioch as its seat; Tigranes the Great of Armenia had ruled the region from 83 to 69 BC.

The Greek-coined name 'Syria' derives ultimately from which ancient empire?

Assyria gave the name: the Greeks shortened 'Assyrioi' to 'Syrioi' and applied it loosely to Arameans as well, a usage confirmed by the bilingual Cinekoy inscription found near Adana in 1997.

In which year did Syria fight Israel in the Six-Day War?

The Six-Day War of June 1967 saw Israel seize Syrian territory in two days of fighting on 9-10 June; Syria's attempt to reverse the loss in the October 1973 war failed, and Quneitra was left in ruins.

Which Syrian town is famous for a black-basalt Roman theatre seating some 15,000?

Bosra, in the far south near the Jordanian border, has a 2nd-century Roman theatre built of black basalt that seats around 15,000 and was later walled in as a citadel.

Syrian television is best known across the Arab world for what?

Soap operas, the Ramadan 'musalsalat' such as Bab al-Hara, made Syrian drama a fixture across the eastern Arab world through the 2000s, exported widely in the Syrian dialect.

Which river flows through Damascus and waters the Ghouta oasis that surrounds it?

The Barada rises in the mountains north-west of Damascus and runs through the city centre before fanning out into the Ghouta orchards; it is usually identified with the Abana of the Old Testament.

Damascus is poetically known as the city of which flower?

Jasmine, grown over courtyard walls across the old city, gave Damascus the epithet 'City of Jasmine'; Syrians colloquially call the city ash-Sham, the same word used for the Levant.

Which English fabric word comes from the patterned silks traded through Damascus?

Damask, a reversible figured weave, took its name from Damascus, a western terminus of the Silk Road where Byzantine and Chinese silks were traded; the word was in English by the 14th century.

What was the ancient Semitic name of Palmyra, also the name of the modern town?

Tadmor appears on 18th-century BC tablets from Mari, and the Greek and Latin name Palmyra reflects the usual derivation from tamar, the Semitic word for date palm.

Which Roman emperor levelled Palmyra in 273 after the city's second revolt?

Aurelian had spared Palmyra after its surrender in 272, but when it rose again the next year he razed it; Diocletian later built a military camp in the reduced city.

Which Palmyrene king defeated the Sasanian emperor Shapur I in the 260s?

Odaenathus harried Shapur's army as it withdrew after the emperor Valerian's capture in 260, then twice campaigned to the gates of Ctesiphon; Rome rewarded him with the title corrector totius Orientis.

In which year did Israel and Aram-Damascus fight alongside each other against Assyria at Qarqar?

In 853 BC the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III met a Levantine coalition at Qarqar on the Orontes; his Kurkh Monolith credits Ahab of Israel with 2,000 chariots among Hadadezer's allies.