Syria Information Guide & Facts

Area: 185,180 sq kms
Population: 18 m
Capital City: Damascus
People: Arab 90.3%, Kurds, Armenians and others 9.7%
Language(s): Arabic (official), Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian, some French and English.
Religion(s): Sunni Muslim 74%, Alawite 11%, Druze and other Muslim sects 5%, Christian (various)10%. About 100 Jews remain in Syria.
Currency: Syrian Pound (also called Lira – LSYR).

GEOGRAPHY

Syria shares a northern border with Turkey, in the east and southeast with Iraq, in the south with Jordan and in the west with Lebanon and Israel. Syria's most contentious boundary is with Israel, where the latter has occupied Syrian territory, the Golan, since 1967. Israel formally annexed the Golan in 1981. Syria also has a short Mediterranean coastline of some 193 kms between Lebanon and Turkey.

HISTORY

Recent History

Syria gained independence from the French Mandate in1943. After the 1948 Arab defeat at the hands of Israel she experienced a series of short-lived military governments, followed, between 1958 and 1961, by an unsuccessful experiment of Union with Nasser's Egypt. In 1963 the Baath, a revolutionary party based on the ideas of Arab nationalism and socialism, seized power. In 1966 a radical wing of the Party seized control, expelling the original founders of the Party who eventually established themselves in Iraq, thus instituting a rivalry between Damascus and Baghdad which has persisted ever since. The radicals then moved closer to Moscow, adopting leftist policies which isolated Syria from many of her neighbours.

In November 1970 the radicals were ousted by Hafez al Asad, then Minister of Defence, at the head of a more moderate and pragmatic section of the Baath. He repaired Syria's relations with her neighbours, and in 1972 introduced a Constitution under which elections had to be held both for a National Assembly and for the Presidency. Voted in as President he ruled the country until his death on 10 June 2000. Asad's rule brought with it an unprecedented period of stability, being given five seven-year terms in office - the last of which was voted through a presidential plebiscite on 10 February 1999 in which he won over 98% support - there were no other candidates.