Syria
country in West Asia
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 the north and northwest, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. It is a republic under a provisional government and comprises 14 governorates. Damascus is Syria's capital and largest city. With a population of 26 million across an area of 185,180 square kilometres (71,500 sq mi), it is the 56th-most populous and 87th-largest country.
The name "Syria" historically referred to the region of Syria, or known as Greater Syria and Syria-Palestine. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization. Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Empire and later became an important political and administrative center, alongside Aleppo, under the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates and the Ottoman Empire. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces.
The public source identifies “Syria” as country in West Asia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Syria, country and West.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Syria”, the useful work is to connect “country in West Asia” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q858. VIAF identifies the subject as 154701530. The Library of Congress control number is n80061798. Authority coordinates are 35.217, 38.583. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Syria” 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.