Suwayda
city in Syria
Suwayda (Arabic: ٱلسُّوَيْدَاء, romanized: as-Suwaydāʾ), also spelled Sweida, is a city located in southern Syria, close to the border with Jordan. It is a Druze-majority city, with small Christian and Sunni Muslim Bedouin minorities.
It is the capital of the Suwayda Governorate, one of Syria's 14 governorates, bordering Jordan in the South, Daraa Governorate in the West and Rif Dimashq Governorate in the north and east.
The city is sometimes referred to as "Little Venezuela" due to the city's influx of affluent Venezuelan Syrian immigrants. Many of them are descendants of Suwayda natives who emigrated to Venezuela in the nineteenth century; upon returning, they brought with them the Spanish language and elements of South American culture.
According to the 2004 census conducted by Syria's Central Bureau of Statistics, Suwayda had a population of 73,641.
History
Ancient and medieval eras
The city was founded by the Nabataeans as Suada. It became known as Dionysias Soada (Ancient Greek: Διονῡσιάς) in the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire, for the god Dionysus, patron of wine – the city is situated in a famous ancient wine-producing region.
The name Dionysias replaced the former Nabataean name in 149 AD after Nabataean influence decreased and then concentrated towards the south, as a result of the then accelerating Hellenization of Coele-Syria.
Dionysias was a part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, and received the rights of civitas during the reign of Commodus between 180 and 185.
The public source identifies “Suwayda” as city in Syria. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Suwayda, city and Syria.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Suwayda”, the useful work is to connect “city in Syria” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q311099. VIAF identifies the subject as 123605541. The Library of Congress control number is nr92042739. Authority coordinates are 32.700, 36.567. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Suwayda” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.