The Coastal Mountain Range ( ar, سلسلة الجبال الساحلية ''Silsilat al-Jibāl as-Sāḥilīyah'') also called Al-Anṣariyyah is a mountain range in northwestern

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

running north–south, parallel to the coastal plain.Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (2005
"Country Profile: Syria"
page 5 The mountains have an average width of , and their average peak elevation is just over with the highest peak, Nabi Yunis, reaching , east of

Latakia , coordinates = , elevation_footnotes = , elevation_m = 11 , elevation_ft = , postal_code_type = , postal_code = , area_code = Country code: 963 City code: 41 , geocode ...

. In the north the average height declines to , and to in the south.

Name

Classically, this range was known as the Bargylus; a name mentioned by

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

. The el, Μπάργκυλος, Bargylus) had its roots in the name of an ancient city-kingdom called Barga most probably located in the vicinity of the mountains; it was a city of the

Ebla Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center t ...

ite Empire in the third millennium BC, and then a vassal kingdom of the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...

, who named the mountain range after Barga. In the medieval period were known as the Jabal Bahra () after the Arab tribe of Bahra’. They are also sometimes known as the Nusayriyah Mountains or the Ansarieh mountains ( ''Jibāl an-Nuṣayriyah'') or the Alawiyin Mountains ( ''Jibāl al-‘Alawīyin''); both of these names refer to the Alawi

ethnoreligious group An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of people who are unified by a common religious and ethnic background. Furthermore, the term ethno-religious group, along with ethno-regional and ethno-linguistic groups, is a ...

which has traditionally lived there, though the former term is based on an antiquated label for the community that is now considered insulting.

Geography

The western slopes catch moisture-laden winds from the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

and are thus more fertile and more heavily populated than the eastern slopes. The

Orontes River The Orontes (; from Ancient Greek , ) or Asi ( ar, العاصي, , ; tr, Asi) is a river with a length of in Western Asia that begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Turkey. A ...

flows north alongside the range on its eastern verge in the Ghab valley, a longitudinal trench,Encyclopædia Britannica – Syria
/ref> and then around the northern edge of the range to flow into the Mediterranean. South of

Masyaf Masyaf ( ar, مصياف ') is a city in northwestern Syria. It is the center of the Masyaf District in the Hama Governorate. As of 2004, Masyaf had a religiously diverse population of approximately 22,000 Ismailis, Alawites and Christians. The c ...

there is a large northeast-southwest

strike-slip fault In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectoni ...

which separates An-Nusayriyah Mountain from the coastal

Lebanon Mountains Mount Lebanon ( ar, جَبَل لُبْنَان, ''jabal lubnān'', ; syr, ܛܘܪ ܠܒ݂ܢܢ, ', , ''ṭūr lewnōn'' french: Mont Liban) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above in elevation, with its peak at . Geography The Mount Le ...

and the

Anti-Lebanon Mountains The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of t ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

, in a feature known as the

Homs Gap The Homs Gap ( ar, فتحة حمص) (also called the Akkar Gap and known in Arabic as al-Buqay'a) is a relatively flat passage in the Orontes River Valley of southern Syria. Nicknamed the "gateway to Syria," the gap separates the An-Nusayriyah M ...

. Between 1920 and 1936, the mountains formed parts of the eastern border of the

Alawite State The Alawite State ( ar, دولة جبل العلويين, '; french: État des Alaouites), officially named the Territory of the Alawites (french: territoire des Alaouites), after the locally-dominant Alawites from its inception until its int ...

within the

French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (french: Mandat pour la Syrie et le Liban; ar, الانتداب الفرنسي على سوريا ولبنان, al-intidāb al-fransi 'ala suriya wa-lubnān) (1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate foun ...

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Syria Hama Governorate Homs Governorate

Name

Geography

See also

References