Syria

Syria is a country in Asia.

Its west side is next to the Mediterranean Sea. It has mountains near the sea. Farther east, the land is wide and dry. The capital city is Damascus.

Syria is a country in southwestern Asia, on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Its coastline is short, only about 180 kilometers long. Mountains run along the coast, and beyond them most of the country is a dry, rolling steppe called the Syrian Desert. It is not a sandy desert: it is mostly rock and gravel.

The Euphrates River crosses the east of the country. The capital, Damascus, lies in an oasis beside the Barada River at the foot of Mount Qasioun. More than 20 million people live in Syria, and most of them speak Arabic.

Syria lies on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean in southwestern Asia; Wikidata gives its area as 185,180 km². Britannica notes that modern Syria is smaller than ancient Syria, the fertile strip between the eastern Mediterranean coast and the north Arabian desert.

Britannica describes four traditional regions: the coastal strip, the mountains, the cultivated steppe and the desert steppe. The desert steppe, the bādiyah, made up some four-fifths of the country's territory. Estimates of the population differ: the World Bank put it at 25,620,427 in 2025, and Britannica estimated about 23.8 million for 2026. Arabic is the official language.

Damascus is the capital city.

It is one of the oldest cities in the world. Aleppo is another very old city. Long ago, a city called Palmyra grew up in the desert. A huge stone castle stands on a hill.

Damascus is considered one of the oldest cities in the world where people have lived without a break. Digs near the city show people lived there 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Its Umayyad Mosque, a place of worship built in the early 700s, is part of the old city's World Heritage Site.

Aleppo stood at the crossroads of trade routes for more than 3,000 years, and its old city grew up around a giant citadel. Palmyra was an oasis city in the desert on the trade route between Persia, India, China and the Roman Empire. The Crac des Chevaliers, a castle built between 1142 and 1271, sits on a high ridge.

UNESCO describes Damascus, founded in the 3rd millennium BCE, as among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world; excavations at Tell Ramad on its outskirts show settlement as early as 8,000 to 10,000 BCE. The Umayyad caliphate made it its capital, and the Great (Umayyad) Mosque, an 8th-century place of worship, is counted by Britannica among the first great monuments of Muslim religious architecture. Its streets still follow a Roman plan.

Aleppo, at the crossroads of trade routes since the 2nd millennium BCE, grew up around a monumental citadel; its old city includes a 12th-century Great Mosque and 16th- and 17th-century madrasas, residences and khans. Palmyra, a caravan oasis under Roman control from the mid-1st century CE, had a colonnaded main street 1,100 m long, and its art combined Graeco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences. The Crac des Chevaliers (1142–1271, with Mamluk additions) is among the best-preserved Crusader castles. UNESCO has listed all six of Syria's World Heritage sites, including Bosra, as in danger since 2013.

Syria has a short coast by the sea.

Next to the coast there are mountains. The tallest mountain is Mount Hermon. Most of the land farther east is dry steppe. Before summer, flowers cover the steppe for a short time.

Along the Mediterranean coast, sandy bays alternate with rocky headlands. Just inland, the Al-Ansariyyah Mountains run from north to south. The Anti-Lebanon Mountains mark the border with Lebanon, and Mount Hermon, at 2,814 meters, is Syria's highest point.

The coast has a Mediterranean climate, with a long dry season from May to October. Inland the climate is drier, with hotter summers and colder winters. The coast and western mountains get 760 to 1,000 millimeters of rain a year, while parts of the desert get less than 130. For a short time before June, flowering plants and grasses cover the steppe.

Britannica's relief divides Syria into a narrow coastal plain, the north-south Al-Ansariyyah range (highest point 1,562 m, east of Latakia), the Ghāb Depression, a 64 km trench holding the Orontes valley, and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, whose main ridge reaches 2,629 m and which culminate in Mount Hermon (Jabal Al-Shaykh), 2,814 m, the country's highest point. The rest is the Syrian Desert, a rock-and-gravel steppe mostly 300 to 500 m above sea level.

The Euphrates, rising in Türkiye, is the most important water source and the only navigable river; Lake Al-Asad, behind the Euphrates Dam at Tabqa, began filling in 1973. Most drainage flows underground through porous rock. Rainfall falls from 760–1,000 mm on the coast to under 130 mm in Al-Ḥamād, and summer maximums at Tadmur and Deir al-Zour average in the upper 30s to low 40s °C. Forests cover only a very small share of the land, mainly in the Al-Ansariyyah Mountains.

Most people in Syria speak Arabic.

Some people speak Kurdish or Armenian too. Syrian cooking uses lemon, garlic and onions. Kibbeh are balls of cracked wheat filled with meat.

Most people in Syria speak Arabic. Other languages include Kurdish, in the far northeast and northwest, Armenian, in Aleppo and other cities, and Turkish, in some villages near the border with Türkiye. Most Syrians are Muslims, and there are Christian communities of many churches.

Syrian cooking often uses lemon, garlic, onions and spices. Kibbeh are shells of cracked wheat filled with meat, spices and pine nuts. Grapevine leaves are stuffed with rice and meat, and mezze is a spread of small dishes served together, often with flat bread, cheese, salads and olives.

Britannica traces the Syrian people mainly to the Semitic peoples of Arabia and Mesopotamia, including Aramaeans, Assyrians and Canaanites, with an Arab majority that includes the Bedouin. Kurds live largely in the northeast; Armenians, Turkmen, Circassians and Syriac-speaking Assyrians are smaller communities. Arabic is spoken by the great majority, with Kurdish, Armenian, Turkish and Adyghe also spoken. The overwhelming majority are Muslims, about three-fourths of them Sunni, with Alawite and Druze communities; Christians, about one-tenth of the population, belong to many churches.

Syrian cuisine features lemon, garlic, onions and spices: kibbeh of bulgur and meat, stuffed grapevine leaves, meat and spinach pies, mezze and a wide variety of pastries, some of which take great skill to make. The Arabic Language Academy in Damascus, founded in 1919, is the oldest such academy in the Arab world, and Damascus produces traditional handicrafts such as brocades, engraved wood, gold and silver ornaments and carpets. Football is the most popular sport.