Syria is a country in Southwestern Asia with a long Mediterranean coastline and the Levant. The Mediterranean Sea is 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 that consists of 14 governorates, as subdivision.
Damascus is the capital city and the largest in Syria. With a population of 24.8 million , this country is ranked the 57th most populous nation and ranked the 8th most populous in the Arab world. Syria is spread across an area of 71,500 square miles making it the 87th largest country in the world.
Syria has had its share of occupation and change and was historically referred to as a wider region--the Levant, known in Arabic as al--Sham. Today, sites of ancient kingdoms and empires including the Elban civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
After centuries of Ottoman rule, the modern state of Syria was established by the mid 20th century, as a French Mandate. This led to her gaining independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945, when the new Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which formally ended the French mandate.
Post independence was tumultuous, with multiple coup attempts, between 1949 and 1971. A brief union was formed with Egypt ending the 1961 Coup d'etat. However, a 1963 coup d'état by the Ba'ath party was successful resulting in the establishment of a one party state from 1963 to 2011. Syria is currently ruled by Bashar al -Assad who succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. This country is home to diverse cultures including, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, Turmens, Kurds, Albanians , and Chechens. Ninety percent of these are Arabs, with Kurds making up the other major group. Its official language is Arabic.
The economic state of Syria is volatile where this country relies inherently on unreliable revenue sources such as, income taxes which are heavily bolstered by lines of credit from Iran. Its current GDP stands at 8.7 billion USD.
Damascus is the capital city and the largest in Syria. With a population of 24.8 million , this country is ranked the 57th most populous nation and ranked the 8th most populous in the Arab world. Syria is spread across an area of 71,500 square miles making it the 87th largest country in the world.
Syria has had its share of occupation and change and was historically referred to as a wider region--the Levant, known in Arabic as al--Sham. Today, sites of ancient kingdoms and empires including the Elban civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
After centuries of Ottoman rule, the modern state of Syria was established by the mid 20th century, as a French Mandate. This led to her gaining independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945, when the new Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which formally ended the French mandate.
Post independence was tumultuous, with multiple coup attempts, between 1949 and 1971. A brief union was formed with Egypt ending the 1961 Coup d'etat. However, a 1963 coup d'état by the Ba'ath party was successful resulting in the establishment of a one party state from 1963 to 2011. Syria is currently ruled by Bashar al -Assad who succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. This country is home to diverse cultures including, Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, Turmens, Kurds, Albanians , and Chechens. Ninety percent of these are Arabs, with Kurds making up the other major group. Its official language is Arabic.
The economic state of Syria is volatile where this country relies inherently on unreliable revenue sources such as, income taxes which are heavily bolstered by lines of credit from Iran. Its current GDP stands at 8.7 billion USD.