Ghuta

33°30′00″N 36°25′15″E / 33.50000°N 36.42083°E / 33.50000; 36.42083 Ghouta (Arabic: غُوطَةُ دِمَشْقَ / ALA-LC: Ḡūṭat Dimašq) is a countryside area in southwestern Syria that surrounds the city of Damascus along its eastern and southern rim.

Name[edit]

Ghouta is an Arabic term (ghuta) for 'garden'.^[1]

Geography[edit]

The Ghouta is an oasis formed by the Barada River, as its waters flow east of Mount Qasioun, and its seven tributaries. It surrounds the city of Damascus. To the east and south of the Ghouta lies the Marj plain, which forms a narrow belt of fields,^[2] and south of that lies the Hauran plain. The Barada River Valley borders the Ghouta to the northeast.^[3] The area north of the Ghouta is less fertile and eventually desolate hill country. To the west of the region is the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.^[2]

The Ghouta is historically the most celebrated 'green zone' (a verdant, fertile area around an urban center) in the Levant, according to the historian Beshara Doumani.^[4] He also notes that its fame in this regard persists, despite the significant loss of its planted areas to the development of suburban sprawl, extensive highways, and the effects of the Syrian Civil War.^[4] It was historically characterized by farming villages, vast gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which stretched up to 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) from the limits of the Old City of Damascus. The lands of the Ghouta were fed by irrigation. These factors distinguished it from the rain-dependent, mainly grain-growing Marj.^[3]

The size of the Ghouta has varied considerably at different times and according to different surveys and estimates. In the 20th century, the Syrian journalist Muhammad Kurd Ali approximated that it spanned an area 20 by 10 kilometers (12.4 mi × 6.2 mi),^[5] while a 2000 a survey reported that the region spanned 19,000 hectares.^[6]

Water resources management in Syria

Doumani, Beshara (8 June 2017). . Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76660-9.

Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History

Elhadj, Elie (2006). . Boca Raton. ISBN 1-58112-298-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Experiments in Achieving Water and Food Self-Sufficiency in the Middle East

Grehan, James (2007). . Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-98676-0.

Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century Damascus

Heydemann, Steven (1999). . Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-2932-3.

Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970

Lehrman, Jonas (1980). . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04363-4.

Earthly Paradise: Garden and Courtyard in Islam

Taylor, Malissa Anne. Fragrant Gardens and Converging Waters: Ottoman Governance in Seventeenth-Century Damascus (Thesis). Berkeley: University of California.

. NASA. 26 June 2013. Satellite image of wider region showing 2013 green areas.