As-Safira ( /

ALA-LC ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script. Applications The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...

: ''as-Safīrah''; Aleppo dialect: ''Sfīre'') is a

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n city administratively belonging to the

Aleppo Governorate Aleppo Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥalab'' ) is one of the fourteen Governorates of Syria, governorates of Syria. It is the most populous governorate in Syria with a population of more than 4,867,000 (2011 Est.), almost 23% of the t ...

. It is the administrative center of the

as-Safira District as-Safira District () is a district of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. Administrative centre is the city of as-Safira. At the 2004 census, the district had a population of 178,293. The main towns are as-Safira and Khanasir. The main econ ...

. As Safīrah has an altitude of , and a population of 106,382 , making it the 11th largest city per geographical entity in Syria. Al-Safira nahiyah

Name

Medieval geographer

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

spells the name ''Asfīrah''le Strange, 1890, p
400
/ref> (), not ''as-Safira'' (), which indicates that the definite article in the modern spelling is a result of

hypercorrection In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is the nonstandard use of language that results from the overapplication of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a ...

. As-Safira was known in pre-Islamic times as Sipri.Ball, Warwick (2006) "The desert edges" ''Syria: A Historical And Architectural Guide'' Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, Massachusetts, page 157, HistoriansNotably Dossin and Lewy, see Sasson, Jack M. (1966
"A Sketch of North Syrian Economic Relations in the Middle Bronze Age"
''Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient'' 9(3): pp. 161–181, page 169, note 2 have suggested that the name ''Sipri'' may have come from the Akkadian word ''siparru'' meaning "bronze", which might indicate that copper was mined and bronze was worked there.

History

Since ancient times the city has been the distribution point for salt gathered from the nearby

Sabkhat al-Jabbul Sabkhat al-Jabbūl or Mamlahat al-Jabbūl or Lake Jabbūl () is a large, traditionally seasonal, saline lake and concurrent salt flats (sabkha) 30 km southeast of Aleppo, Syria, in the Bāb District of Aleppo Governorate. It is the larg ...

Archeological findings

The Sfire I Treaty which may contain 8th century BCE evidence of a deity called " Most High."

Geography

Climate

As-Safira has a

cold semi-arid climate Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

: ''BSk'').

Notes

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Safirah Cities in Syria Populated places in al-Safira District