officially Syrian Arab Republic
Country, Middle East, along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Area: 71,498 sq mi (185,180 sq km). Population (2002 est.): 17,156,000. Capital: Damascus . Arabs are the main ethnic group, and Kurds are the largest minority. Languages: Arabic (official), French, Kurdish, Armenian, English. Religions: Islam (Sunnite, ʽAlawiyyah), Druze, Christianity. Currency: Syrian pound. Syria consists of a coastal zone with abundant water supplies, a mountain zone that includes the Anti-Lebanon Mountains , and a portion of the Syrian Desert . The Euphrates River is its most important water source and only navigable river. It has a mixed economy based on agriculture, trade, and mining and manufacturing. Crops include cotton, cereals, fruits, tobacco, and livestock. The main mineral resources are petroleum, natural gas, and iron ore; manufactures include textiles, cement, and shoes. Syria is a republic with one legislative house; its head of state and of government is the president, who by law must be a Muslim. The legal system is based largely on Islamic law. The area that now comprises Syria has been inhabited for several thousand years. From the 3rd millennium BC, it was under the control variously of Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Babylonians. In the 6th century BC it became part of the Persian Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Seleucid rulers governed it (301–с 164 BC); then Parthians and Nabataean Arabs divided the region. It flourished as a Roman province (64 BC–AD 300) and as part of the Byzantine Empire (300–634), until Arab Muslims invaded and established control. Thereafter the region was ruled by various Muslim dynasties. It came under the Ottoman Empire in 1516, which held it, except for brief periods, until the British invaded in World War I (1914–18). After the war it became a French mandate; it achieved independence in 1944. It united with Egypt in the United Arab Republic (1958–61). During the Six-Day War (1967), it lost the Golan Heights to Israel. Syrian troops frequently clashed with Israeli forces in Lebanon during the 1980s and '90s. {{link=Assad, Hafiz al-">Hāfiz al-Assad 's long regime was marked also by antagonism toward Syria's neighbours Turkey and Iraq.