The Coastal Mountain Range (, ''Silsilat al-Jibāl as-Sāḥilīyah'') also called Jabal al-Ansariya, Jabal an-Nusayria or Jabal al-`Alawīyin (Ansari, Nusayri or Alawi Mountains) is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in northwestern Syria running north–south, parallel to the coastal plain.Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (2005
"Country Profile: Syria"
(PDF), 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 Latakia (; ; Syrian Arabic, Syrian pronunciation: ) is the principal port city of Syria and capital city of the Latakia Governorate located on the Mediterranean coast. Historically, it has also been known as Laodicea in Syria or Laodicea ad Mar ...

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

has been home to an Alawite population since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

Name

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

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

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

Ebla Ebla (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', , modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a Tell (archaeology), tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was ...

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

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

, who named the mountain range after Barga. In the medieval period they 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 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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

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

Orontes River The Orontes (; from Ancient Greek , ) or Nahr al-ʿĀṣī, or simply Asi (, ; ) is a long river in Western Asia that begins in Lebanon, flowing northwards through Syria before entering the Mediterranean Sea near Samandağ in Hatay Province, Turk ...

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 ( ') 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 city is well kno ...

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 tectonic ...

which separates An-Nusayriyah Mountain from the coastal

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon (, ; , ; ) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It is about long and averages above in elevation, with its peak at . The range provides a typical alpine climate year-round. Mount Lebanon is well-known for its snow-covered mountains, ...

and the

Anti-Lebanon Mountains The Anti-Lebanon mountains (), also called Mount Amana, are a southwest–northeast-trending, c. long mountain range that forms most of the border between Syria and Lebanon. The border is largely defined along the crest of the range. Most of ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, in a feature known as the

Homs Gap The Homs Gap () (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 Mountains and Jabal Z ...

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

Alawite State The Alawite State (, '; ), initially named the Territory of the Alawites ()—after the locally-dominant Alawites—from its inception until its integration to the Syrian Federation in 1922, was a French mandate territory on the coast of pre ...

within the French

Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (; , also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, concerning the territories ...

References

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

Name

Geography

See also

References