Damascus

)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
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, subdivision_name1 = Damascus Governorate, Capital City

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, leader_name = Mohammad Tariq Kreishati
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, elevation_m = 680
, population_total = 2,503,000
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, footnotes =

Damascus ( , ; Arabic: , ) is the capital of Syria, the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth holiest city in Islam. Colloquially known in Syria as () and titled the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. The city had an estimated population of 2,503,000 in 2022.

In southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Its population in 2004 was estimated to be 2.7 million people. Embedded on the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus.

Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. Damascus saw its importance decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the central government of Syria. , eight years into the Syrian Civil War, Damascus was named the least livable city out of 140 global cities in the Global Liveability Ranking.

Names and etymology

The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as () in the 15th century BC.
The etymology of the ancient name is uncertain. It is attested as () in Akkadian, () in Egyptian, () in Old Aramaic and () in Biblical Hebrew. A number of Akkadian spellings are found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC: (), (), and ().

Later Aramaic spellings of the name often include an intrusive '' resh'' (letter ''r''), perhaps influenced by the root , meaning "dwelling". Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is , which was imported from Greek and originated from the Qumranic (), and () in Syriac", meaning "a well-watered land".

In Arabic, the city is called Dimashq ( ). The city is also known as by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbors and Turkey (). is an Arabic term for "Levant" and for "Syria"; the latter, and particularly the historical region of Syria, is called (, ).), was a Semitic sky-god in Canaan/Phoenicia and ancient Palmyra. Hence, Sham refers to (''heaven'' or ''sky''). The latter term etymologically means "land of the left-hand side" or "the north", as someone in the Hijaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen ( ), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation ('), of the more typical (), is also attested in Old South Arabian, (), with the same semantic development.

Geography

Damascus was built in a strategic site on a plateau above sea level and about inland from the Mediterranean, sheltered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, supplied with water by the Barada River, and at a crossroads between trade routes: the north–south route connecting Egypt with Asia Minor, and the east–west cross-desert route connecting Lebanon with the Euphrates river valley. The Anti-Lebanon Mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, so that the region of Damascus is sometimes subject to droughts. However, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals and fruits have been farmed since ancient times. Maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist.

The modern city has an area of , out of which is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest.

The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, lies on the south bank of the river Barada which is almost dry ( left). To the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages: Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighborhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city, near the tombs of religious figures. In the 19th century outlying villages developed on the slopes of Jabal Qasioun, overlooking the city, already the site of the al-Salihiyah neighborhood centered on the important shrine of medieval Andalusian Sheikh and philosopher Ibn Arabi. These new neighborhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule. Thus they were known as ''al-Akrad'' ''(the Kurds)'' and ''al-Muhajirin'' ''(the migrants)''. They lay north of the old city.

From the late 19th century on, a modern administrative and commercial center began to spring up to the west of the old city, around the Barada, centered on the area known as al-Marjeh or "the meadow". Al-Marjeh soon became the name of what was initially the central square of modern Damascus, with the city hall in it. The courts of justice, post office and railway station stood on higher ground slightly to the south. A Europeanized residential quarter soon began to be built on the road leading between al-Marjeh and al-Salihiyah. The commercial and administrative center of the new city gradually shifted northwards slightly towards this area.

In the 20th century, newer suburbs developed north of the Barada, and to some extent to the south, invading the Ghouta oasis. In 1956–1957, the new neighborhood of Yarmouk became a second home to thousands of Palestinian refugees. City planners preferred to preserve the Ghouta as far as possible, and in the later 20th century some of the main areas of development were to the north, in the western Mezzeh neighborhood and most recently along the Barada valley in Dummar in the north west and on the slopes of the mountains at Barzeh in the north-east. Poorer areas, often built without official approval, have mostly developed south of the main city.

Damascus used to be surrounded by an oasis, the Ghouta region ( ar, الغوطة, ''al-ġūṭä''), watered by the Barada river. The Fijeh spring, west along the Barada valley, used to provide the city with drinking water and various sources to the west are tapped by water contractors. The flow of the Barada dropped with the rapid expansion of housing and industry in the city and it is almost dry. The lower aquifers are polluted by the city's runoff from heavily used roads, industry and sewage.

Climate

Damascus has a cool arid climate (''BWk'') in the Köppen-Geiger system, due to the rain shadow effect of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the prevailing ocean currents. Summers are prolonged, dry and hot with less humidity. Winters are cool and somewhat rainy; snowfall is infrequent. Autumn is brief and mild, but has the most drastic temperature change, unlike spring where the transition to summer is more gradual and steady. Annual rainfall is around , occurring from October to May.

History

Early settlement

Carbon-14 dating at Tell Ramad, on the outskirts of Damascus, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC. However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists, although no large-scale settlement was present within Damascus' walls until the second millennium BC.

Some of the earliest Egyptian records are from the 1350 BC Amarna letters, when Damascus (called ''Dimasqu'') was ruled by king Biryawaza. The Damascus region, as well as the rest of Syria, became a battleground circa 1260 BC, between the Hittites from the north and the Egyptians from the south, ending with a signed treaty between Hattusili and Ramesses II where the former handed over control of the Damascus area to Ramesses II in 1259 BC. The arrival of the Sea Peoples, around 1200 BC, marked the end of the Bronze Age in the region and brought about new development of warfare. Damascus was only a peripheral part of this picture, which mostly affected the larger population centers of ancient Syria. However, these events contributed to the development of Damascus as a new influential center that emerged with the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

Damascus is mentioned in Genesis 14:15 as existing at the time of the War of the Kings. According to the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his twenty-one volume ''Antiquities of the Jews'', Damascus (along with Trachonitis), was founded by Uz, the son of Aram. In Antiquities i. 7, Josephus reports:

Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham.

Aram-Damascus

Damascus is first documented as an important city during the arrival of the Aramaeans, a Semitic people

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