Syria (region)
Syria (Hieroglyphic Luwian: 𔒂𔒠 Sura/i; Greek: Συρία; Classical Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ) or Sham (Arabic: ٱلشَّام, romanized: Ash-Shām) is a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant.[3] Other synonyms are Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine.[2] The region boundaries have changed throughout history. However, in modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic.
This article is about the region of Syria also called "Greater Syria" or "Syria-Palestine". For the modern country, see Syria. For other uses, see Syria (disambiguation).
The term is originally derived from Assyria, an ancient civilization centered in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq.[4][5] During the Hellenistic period, the term Syria was applied to the entire Levant as Coele-Syria. Under Roman rule, the term was used to refer to the province of Syria, later divided into Syria Phoenicia and Coele Syria, and to the province of Syria Palaestina. Under the Byzantines, the provinces of Syria Prima and Syria Secunda emerged out of Coele Syria. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the term was superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, and under the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, Bilad al-Sham was the name of a metropolitan province encompassing most of the region. In the 19th century, the name Syria was revived in its modem Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya, which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.[6]
After World War I, the boundaries of the region were last defined in modern times by the proclamation of and subsequent definition by French and British mandatory agreement. The area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon, various states under Mandatory French rule, British-controlled Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan. The term Syria itself was applied to several mandate states under French rule and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria. The Syrian-mandate states were gradually unified as the State of Syria and finally became the independent Syria in 1946. Throughout this period, pan-Syrian nationalists advocated for the creation of a Greater Syria.
Etymology and evolution of the term[edit]
Several sources indicate that the name Syria itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι, Sýrioi, or Σύροι, Sýroi, both of which originally derived from Aššūrāyu (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq and greater Syria[4][5][7][8] For Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Syria extended as far north as the Halys (the modern Kızılırmak River) and as far south as Arabia and Egypt. For Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela, Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent.
In Late Antiquity, "Syria" meant a region located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south of the Taurus Mountains,[9] thereby including modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and parts of Southern Turkey, namely the Hatay Province and the western half of the Southeastern Anatolia Region. This late definition is equivalent to the region known in Classical Arabic by the name ash-Shām (Arabic: ٱَلشَّام /ʔaʃ-ʃaːm/,[10] which means the north [country][10] (from the root šʔm Arabic: شَأْم "left, north")). After the Islamic conquest of Byzantine Syria in the 7th century CE, the name Syria fell out of primary use in the region itself, being superseded by the Arabic equivalent Shām, but survived in its original sense in Byzantine and Western European usage, and in Syriac Christian literature.[6] In the 19th century the name Syria was revived in its modern Arabic form to denote the whole of Bilad al-Sham, either as Suriyah or the modern form Suriyya, which eventually replaced the Arabic name of Bilad al-Sham.[6] After World War I, the name Syria was applied to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon and the contemporaneous but short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria.
An 1810 map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia, showing the region of Ottoman Syria
Ethnic groups in the Middle East shown in a pre-World War I British government map. The primary population of the region of Syria is described as "Arabs (settled)" and inland as "Arabs (nomadic)"
