Syria facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids Syria سُورِيَا (Arabic) Sūriyā
Anthem: حُمَاةَ الدِّيَارِ Ḥumāt ad-Diyār "Guardians of the Homeland"
Syria proper shown in dark green; Syria's territorial claims over the Turkish Hatay Province and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shown in light greenShow globe Show map of Syria
Capital and largest city	Damascus 33°30′N 36°18′E / 33.500°N 36.300°E / 33.500; 36.300
Major languages	Arabic
Minor languages	See: Languages of Syria
Ethnic groups (2021)	80–90% Arabs 9–10% Kurds 1–10% others
Religion (2021)	87% Islam 74% Sunni Islam 13% Alawism and other Shia Islam 10% Christianity 3% Druze
Demonym(s)	Syrian
Government	Transitional government

• President	Vacant
• Vice President	Vacant
• Prime Minister	Mohammed al-Bashir

Legislature	People's Assembly
Establishment

• Arab Kingdom of Syria	8 March 1920
• State of Syria under French mandate	1 December 1924
• First Syrian Republic	14 May 1930
• End of the French mandate	17 April 1946
• Left the United Arab Republic	28 September 1961
• Beginning of Ba'athist rule	8 March 1963
• Ba'athist regime overthrown	8 December 2024

Area
• Total	185,180 km² (71,500 sq mi) (87th)
• Water (%)	1.1
Population
• 2024 estimate	25,000,753 (57th)
• Density	118.3/km² (306.4/sq mi) (70th)
GDP (PPP)	2015 estimate
• Total	$50.28 billion
• Per capita	$2,900
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
• Total	$11.08 billion
• Per capita	$533
Gini (2022)	▼ 26.6 low
HDI (2022)	0.557 medium · 157th
Currency	Syrian pound (SYP)
Time zone	UTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time)
Calling code	+963
ISO 3166 code	SY
Internet TLD	.sy سوريا.

Syria

A map of Syria

Syria is a country in the Middle East, the west part of Asia. It borders (from south to north) on Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. Its western part faces the Mediterranean Sea. Its eastern and northern parts are mountainous.

Syria's national capital is Damascus. The biggest city is Aleppo.

Since the Arab Spring in 2011, Syria has been embroiled in a multi-sided civil war, with involvement of different countries, leading to a refugee crisis where more than 6 million refugees were displaced from the country.

The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze.

History

Amrit Phoenician Temple

Syria has a very long history. It was a land of Phoenicians. Later it became part of the Achaemenid Empire, Roman Empire and then the Eastern Roman Empire. In those days people spoke the Syriac language. The city Antioch was great and one of the important cities in Christendom. In the Arab Empire people began to speak the Arabic language. Today most Syrian people believe in Islam but there are still Christians too.

When World War I ended, France was given control over Lebanon and Syria. Britain was given power over Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. A border was drawn between Iraq and Syria in 1920. France controlled Syria until 1946. That year Syria became its own country.

Syria was part of the United Arab Republic with Egypt in 1958-1961. Syria had some wars with Israel and some territories like the Golan Plateau were occupied by Israel.

The line in the middle of this map is the border drawn in 1920 separating Iraq and Syria.

In 2012 with the Arab Spring a bloody civil war began against President Bashar al-Assad with involvement of different countries. Three political entities – the Syrian Interim Government, Syrian Salvation Government, and Rojava – have emerged in Syrian territory to challenge Assad's rule. On 8 December 2024, opposition forces captured the capital Damascus, toppling Bashar al-Assad's government and ending the Assad family's 53-year-long rule over the country.

Geography

Syria is the twelfth most water stressed country in the world.

Syria lies between latitudes 32° and 38° N, and longitudes 35° and 43° E. The climate varies from the humid Mediterranean coast, through a semiarid steppe zone, to arid desert in the east. The country consists mostly of arid plateau, although the northwest part bordering the Mediterranean is fairly green. Al-Jazira in the northeast and Hawran in the south are important agricultural areas. The Euphrates, Syria's most important river, crosses the country in the east. Syria is one of the fifteen states that comprise the so-called "cradle of civilization". Its land straddles the "northwest of the Arabian plate".

Petroleum in commercial quantities was first discovered in the northeast in 1956. The most important oil fields are those of al-Suwaydiyah, Karatchok, Rmelan near al-Hasakah, as well as al-Omar and al-Taym fields near Dayr az–Zawr. The fields are a natural extension of the Iraqi fields of Mosul and Kirkuk. Petroleum became Syria's leading natural resource and chief export after 1974. Natural gas was discovered at the field of Jbessa in 1940.

Biodiversity

Syria contains four terrestrial ecoregions: Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands, Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forests, Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests, and Mesopotamian shrub desert. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.64/10, ranking it 144th globally out of 172 countries.

Government and politics

Ba'athist Syria

The Syrian Arab Republic was a presidential state. According to the 2012 Syrian constitution, the President of Syria was the head of the Syrian state, while the Prime Minister of Syria was nominally the head of government, although real power in the system lay with the presidency. The legislature, the People's Assembly, was the body responsible for passing laws, approving government appropriations and debating policy. In the event of a vote of no confidence by a simple majority, the prime minister was required to tender the resignation of their government to the president.

The executive branch consisted of the president, two vice presidents, the prime minister, and the Council of Ministers (cabinet). The constitution required the president to be a Muslim but did not make Islam the state religion. On 31 January 1973, Hafiz al-Assad implemented a new constitution, which led to a national crisis. Unlike previous constitutions, this one did not require that the President of Syria be a Muslim, leading to fierce demonstrations in Hama, Homs, and Aleppo organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and the traditional ulama. They labelled Assad the "enemy of Allah" and called for a jihad against his rule. The government survived a series of armed revolts led mostly by Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, between 1976 and 1982, through a series of repressions and massacres. The constitution gave the president the right to appoint ministers, to declare war and state of emergency, to issue laws (which, except in the case of emergency, require ratification by the People's Council), to declare amnesty, to amend the constitution, and to appoint civil servants and military personnel. According to the 2012 constitution, the president was elected by Syrian citizens in a direct election.

Administrative divisions

Syria is divided into 14 governorates, which are sub-divided into 61 districts, which are further divided into sub-districts. The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, while de facto autonomous, is not recognized by the country as such.

	No.	Governorate	Capital
Governorates of Syria
	1	Latakia	Latakia
	2	Idlib	Idlib
	3	Aleppo	Aleppo
	4	Raqqa	Raqqa
	5	Al-Hasakah	Al-Hasakah
	6	Tartus	Tartus
	7	Hama	Hama
	8	Deir ez-Zor	Deir ez-Zor
	9	Homs	Homs
	10	Damascus	Damascus
	11	Rif Dimashq	Douma
	12	Quneitra	Quneitra
	13	Daraa	Daraa
	14	Al-Suwayda	Al-Suwayda

Military

The President of Syria is commander in chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, comprising some 400,000 troops upon mobilization. The military is a conscripted force; males serve in the military upon reaching the age of 18. The obligatory military service period is being decreased over time, in 2005 from two and a half years to two years, in 2008 to 21 months and in 2011 to year and a half.

Economy

Olive groves in Western-Syria, Homs Governorate.

Syria is a middle-income country. In 2010, Syria remained dependent on the oil and agriculture sectors. The oil sector provided about 40% of export earnings. Proven offshore expeditions have indicated that large sums of oil exist on the Mediterranean Sea floor between Syria and Cyprus. The agriculture sector contributes to about 20% of GDP and 20% of employment. Oil reserves are expected to decrease in the coming years and Syria has already become a net oil importer. Since the civil war began, the economy shrank by 35%, and the Syrian pound has fallen to one-sixth of its prewar value. The government increasingly relies on credit from Iran, Russia and China.

Transport

Syria has four international airports (Damascus, Aleppo, Lattakia and Qamishli), which serve as hubs for Syrian Air and are also served by a variety of foreign carriers. The majority of Syrian cargo is carried by Syrian Railways (the Syrian railway company), which links up with Turkish State Railways (the Turkish counterpart). For a relatively underdeveloped country, Syria's railway infrastructure is well maintained with many express services and modern trains. The road network in Syria is 69,873 kilometres (43,417 miles) long, including 1,103 kilometres (685 miles) of expressways. The country also has 900 kilometres (560 miles) of navigable but not economically significant waterways.

Demographics

Most people live in the Euphrates River valley and along the coastal plain, a fertile strip between the coastal mountains and the desert. Overall population density in Syria before the Civil War was about 99 per square kilometre (258 per square mile). According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers numbering approximately 1,852,300. The vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), but sizeable populations from Palestine (543,400) and Somalia (5,200) also lived in the country.

In what the UN has described as "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era", by 2014 about 9.5 million Syrians, half the population, had been displaced since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011; 4 million were outside the country as refugees. By 2020, the UN estimated that over 5.5 million Syrians were living as refugees in the region, and 6.1 million others were internally displaced.

Ethnic groups

Damascus, traditional clothing

Syrians are an overall indigenous Levantine people, closely related to their immediate neighbors, such as Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians and Jews. Syria has a population of approximately 18,500,000 (2019 estimate). Syrian Arabs, together with some 600,000 Palestinian not including the 6 million refugees outside the country. Arabs make up roughly 74% of the population. The indigenous Assyrians and Western Aramaic-speakers number around 400,000 people, with the Western Aramaic-speakers living mainly in the villages of Ma'loula, Jubb'adin and Bakh'a, while the Assyrians mainly reside in the north and northeast (Homs, Aleppo, Qamishli, Hasakah). Many (particularly the Assyrian group) still retain several Neo-Aramaic dialects as spoken and written languages.

The second-largest ethnic group in Syria are the Kurds. They constitute about 9% to 10% of the population, or approximately 2 million people (including 40,000 Yazidis).

The ethno-religious composition of Syria

There are also smaller ethnic minority groups, such as the Albanians, Bosnians, Georgians, Greeks, Persians, Pashtuns and Russians. However, most of these ethnic minorities have become Arabized to some degree.

Languages

Arabic is the official language of the country. In addition to Arabic, the following languages are spoken in the country, in order of the number of speakers: Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic (four dialects), Circassian, Chechen, Armenian, and finally Greek. However, none of these minority languages have official status.

English and French are widely spoken as second languages, but English is more often used.

Religion

Great Mosque of Aleppo, Aleppo

Sunni Muslims make up around 74% of Syria's population and Sunni Arabs account for 59–60% of the population. There are around 1.2 million Christians.

Culture

Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions.

Syria is a traditional society with a long cultural history. Importance is placed on family, religion, education, self-discipline and respect. Syrians' taste for the traditional arts is expressed in dances such as the al-Samah, the Dabkeh in all their variations, and the sword dance. Marriage ceremonies and the births of children are occasions for the lively demonstration of folk customs.

Literature

Adunis

The literature of Syria has contributed to Arabic literature and has a proud tradition of oral and written poetry. Syrian writers, many of whom migrated to Egypt, played a crucial role in the nahda or Arab literary and cultural revival of the 19th century. Prominent contemporary Syrian writers include, among others, Adonis, Muhammad Maghout, Haidar Haidar, Ghada al-Samman, Nizar Qabbani and Zakariyya Tamer.

Ba'ath Party rule, since the 1966 coup, has brought about renewed censorship. In this context, the genre of the historical novel, spearheaded by Nabil Sulayman, Fawwaz Haddad, Khyri al-Dhahabi and Nihad Siris, is sometimes used as a means of expressing dissent, critiquing the present through a depiction of the past. Syrian folk narrative, as a subgenre of historical fiction, is imbued with magical realism, and is also used as a means of veiled criticism of the present. Salim Barakat, a Syrian émigré living in Sweden, is one of the leading figures of the genre. Contemporary Syrian literature also encompasses science fiction and futuristic utopiae (Nuhad Sharif, Talib Umran), which may also serve as media of dissent.

Music

The Syrian music scene, in particular that of Damascus, has long been among the Arab world's most important, especially in the field of classical Arab music. Syria has produced several pan-Arab stars, including Asmahan, Farid al-Atrash and singer Lena Chamamyan. The city of Aleppo is known for its muwashshah, a form of Andalous sung poetry popularized by Sabri Moudallal, as well as for popular stars like Sabah Fakhri.

Cuisine

Fattoush, a Syrian bread salad

Syrian cuisine is rich and varied in its ingredients, linked to the regions of Syria where a specific dish has originated. Syrian food mostly consists of Southern Mediterranean, Greek, and Southwest Asian dishes. Some Syrian dishes also evolved from Turkish and French cooking: dishes like shish kebab, stuffed zucchini/courgette, and yabraʾ (stuffed grape leaves, the word yabraʾ deriving from the Turkish word yaprak, meaning leaf).

The main dishes that form Syrian cuisine are kibbeh, hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh, shawarma, mujaddara, shanklish, pastırma, sujuk and baklava. Baklava is made of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey. Syrians often serve selections of appetizers, known as meze, before the main course. Za'atar, minced beef, and cheese manakish are popular hors d'œuvres. The Arabic flatbread khubz is always eaten together with meze.

Drinks in Syria vary, depending on the time of day and the occasion. Arabic coffee is the most well-known hot drink, usually prepared in the morning at breakfast or in the evening. It is usually served for guests or after food. Arak, an alcoholic drink, is a well-known beverage, served mostly on special occasions. Other Syrian beverages include ayran, jallab, white coffee, and a locally manufactured beer called Al Shark.

Images for kids

God head, the kingdom of Yamhad (c. 1600 BC).
Ebla royal palace c. 2400 BC
Reliefs from Tel Halaf dating to the Aramean kingdom of Bit Bahiani
Ancient city of Palmyra
Roman theatre of Bosra in the province of Arabia, present-day Syria
The Palmyrene empire in 271 AD
Fresco from Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbî, built in the early 7th century
The 1299 Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar. The Mongols under Ghazan defeated the Mamluks.
1803 Cedid Atlas, showing Ottoman Syria labelled as "Al Sham" in yellow
Syrian women, 1683
The inauguration of President Hashim al-Atassi in 1936
Syrian rebels in Ghouta during the Great Syrian Revolt against French colonial rule in the 1920s
Aleppo in 1961
Hafez al-Assad greets Richard Nixon on his arrival at Damascus airport in 1974
Quneitra village, largely destroyed before the Israeli withdrawal in June 1974.
Dmitry Medvedev arriving in Damascus in May 2010
Burj Islam, a well-known beach just north of Latakia
The Syrian Parliament in the mid-20th century
Syrian soldier wearing a Soviet-made Model ShMS nuclear-biological-chemical warfare mask aiming a Chinese Type-56 automatic assault rifle
Diplomatic missions of Syria
Pre-civil war Syria Export Treemap (no longer accurately represents Syria's exports)
Aleppo soap
Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus in 2010
Oil refinery in Homs
Expressway M5 near Al-Rastan
Children in Aleppo
Aleppo International Stadium
Damascus University headquarters in Baramkeh