Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital city in the world. Known colloquially in Syria as aš-Šām and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" (مَدِيْنَةُ الْيَاسْمِينِ, Madīnat al-Yāsmīn), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world.
Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80 kilometres (50 mi) inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus.
Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. According to some, Damascus is the fourth-holiest city in Islam. The city saw its importance decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
Today, it is the seat of the central government of Syria. During the Syrian civil war, Damascus was named the least livable city out of 140 global cities in the Global Liveability Ranking. As of June 2023, it was the least livable out of 173 global cities in the same Global Liveability Ranking. In 2017, two development projects were launched in Damascus to build new residential districts, Marota City and Basillia City to symbolize post-war reconstruction.
Names and etymology
Late Bronze Age
The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as tjmsqw (𓍘𓄟𓈎𓅱𓈉 and 𓍘𓄟𓊃𓈎𓅱𓈉) in the 15th century BC. The etymology of the ancient name tjmsqw (T-ms-q.w) is uncertain.
A number of Akkadian spellings are found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC: Dimašqa (𒁲𒈦𒋡, 𒁲𒈦𒀸𒋡), and Dimašqì (𒁲𒈦𒀸𒄀).
Iron Age
It is attested as Ša-imerišu (𒃻𒆳𒀲𒋙) in Neo-Assyrian Akkadian.
Later Aramaic Damašq (𐡃𐡌𐡔𐡒) in Old Aramaic, spellings of the name often include an intrusive resh (letter r), perhaps influenced by the root dr, meaning "dwelling". The Qumranic Darmeśeq (דרמשק), and Darmsûq (ܕܪܡܣܘܩ) in Syriac, meaning "a well-watered land".
In Greek mythology, there are three explanations for the city's name Damaskós (Δαμασκός). According to one, it was named for the giant Ascus (Ἄσκος). Another says it was named after Damaskos, the son of Hermes and the nymph Alimede, who traveled from Arcadia to Syria and founded a city bearing his name. A third version holds that Damaskos was a man who, after Dionysus made Syria fertile with vineyards, cut them down with an axe. Enraged, Dionysus pursued and flayed him. His original name was Darmaskos, which later evolved into Damaskos. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus, which was imported from Greek Δαμασκός.
In Arabic, the city is called Dimashq (دمشق Dimašq). The city is also known as aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbors and Turkey (Şam). Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for "Levant" and for "Syria"; the latter, and particularly the historical region of Syria, is called Bilād aš-Šām (بلاد الشام, lit. 'land of the Levant'). The latter term etymologically means "land of the left-hand side" or "the north", as someone in the Hijaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen (اَلْيَمَن al-Yaman), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation ش ء م (š-ʾ-m'), of the more typical ش م ل (š-m-l), is also attested in Old South Arabian, 𐩦𐩱𐩣 (šʾm), with the same semantic development. The patterned Byzantine and Chinese silks available through Damascus, one of the Western termini of the Silk Road, gave the English language "damask".
Geography
Damascus was built in a strategic site on a plateau 680 m (2,230 ft) above sea level and about 80 km (50 mi) inland from the Mediterranean, sheltered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, supplied with water by the Barada River, and at a crossroads between trade routes: the north–south route connecting Egypt with Asia Minor, and the east–west cross-desert route connecting Lebanon with the Euphrates river valley. The Anti-Lebanon Mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft (3,000 m) and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean Sea, so the region of Damascus is sometimes subject to droughts. However, in ancient times, the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow, mitigated this. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where vegetables, cereals, and fruits have been farmed since ancient times. Maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada River emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought, it dries up.
The modern city has an area of 105 km2 (41 sq mi), out of which 77 km2 (30 sq mi) is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest.
The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, lies on the south bank of the river Barada which is almost dry (3 cm (1 in) left). To the southeast, north, and northeast it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages: Midan in the southwest, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighborhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city, near the tombs of religious figures. In the 19th century outlying villages developed on the slopes of Jabal Qasioun, overlooking the city, already the site of the al-Salihiyah neighborhood centered on the important shrine of medieval Andalusian Sheikh and philosopher Ibn Arabi. These neighborhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiers and Muslim refugees from the Europe regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule. Thus they were known as al-Akrad (the Kurds) and al-Muhajirin (the migrants). They lay 2–3 km (1–2 mi) north of the old city.
From the late 19th century on, a modern administrative and commercial center began to spring up to the west of the old city, around the Barada, centered on the area known as al-Marjeh or "the meadow". Al-Marjeh soon became the name of what was initially the central square of modern Damascus, with the city hall in it. The courts of justice, post office, and railway station stood on higher ground slightly to the south. A Europeanized residential quarter soon began to be built on the road leading between al-Marjeh and al-Salihiyah. The commercial and administrative center gradually shifted northwards towards this area.
In the 20th century, suburbs developed north of the Barada, and to some extent to the south. In 1956–1957, the Yarmouk became home to many Palestinian refugees. City planners preferred to preserve the Ghouta as far as possible, and in the later 20th century some of the main areas of development were to the north, in the western Mezzeh neighborhood and most recently along the Barada valley in Dummar in the northwest and on the slopes of the mountains at Barzeh in the north-east. Poorer areas, often built without official approval, have developed south of the main city.
Damascus used to be surrounded by an oasis, the Ghouta region (Arabic: الغوطة, romanized: al-ġūṭä), watered by the Barada river. The Fijeh spring, west along the Barada valley, provided the city with drinking water, and various sources to the west were tapped by water contractors. The flow of the Barada dropped with the rapid expansion of housing and industry, leaving it almost dry. The lower aquifers are polluted by the city's runoff from heavily used roads, industry, and sewage.
Climate
Damascus has a cool arid climate (BWk) in the Köppen-Geiger system, due to the rain shadow effect of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the prevailing ocean currents. Summers are prolonged, dry, and hot with less humidity. Winters are cool and somewhat rainy; snowfall is infrequent. Autumn is brief and mild, but has the most drastic temperature change, unlike spring where the transition to summer is more gradual and steady. Annual rainfall is around 130 mm (5 in), occurring from October to May.
History
Early settlement
Carbon-14 dating at Tell Ramad, on Damascus's outskirts, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC. But evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating to 9000 BC exists, although no large-scale settlement was present within Damascus's walls until the second millennium BC.
Late Bronze Age
Late Bronze I
In the early 18th dynasty, during the reign of Thutmose III of Egypt he mentions Damascus. The name of Damascus appeared in his geographical listas tjmsqw (𓍘𓄟𓈎𓅱𓈉 and 𓍘𓄟𓊃𓈎𓅱) in the 15th century BC.
Late Bronze II
During the late 18th dynasty, the Amarna letters (c. 1350 BC) mentions Damascus (Dimasqu) as ruled by Biryawaza.
During the 19th dynasty (c. 1260 BC), the Damascus region and the rest of Syria became a battleground between the Hittites from the north and the Egyptians from the south, ending with a signed treaty between Hattusili III and Ramesses II. The former handed over control of the Damascus area to the latter in 1259 BC.
The 20th dynasty lost control over the Southern Levant. The arrival of the Sea Peoples around 1200 BC marked the end of the Bronze Age in the region and brought about new development of warfare. Damascus was only a peripheral part of this picture, which mostly affected the larger population centers of ancient Syria. But these events contributed to Damascus's emergence as an influential center during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
Damascus is mentioned in Genesis 14:15 as existing at the time of the War of the Kings. According to the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, Damascus (along with Trachonitis) was founded by Uz, the son of Aram. In Antiquities i. 7, Josephus reports:
Nicholas of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity became a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is a village named after him, The Habitation of Abraham.
Iron Age
Aram-Damascus
Damascus is first documented as an important city during the arrival of the Aramaeans, a Semitic people, in the 11th century BC. By the start of the first millennium BC, several Aramaic kingdoms formed, as Aramaeans abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and formed federated tribal states. One of these was Aram-Damascus, centered on its capital, Damascus. The Aramaeans who entered the city without battle adopted the name "Dimashqu" for their new home. Noticing the agricultural potential of the still undeveloped and sparsely populated area, they established a water distribution system by constructing canals and tunnels that maximized the efficiency of the river Barada. The Romans and the Umayyads later improved the network, which still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of the city. The Aramaeans initially turned Damascus into an outpost of a loose federation of Aramaean tribes, known as Aram-Zobah, based in the Beqaa Valley.
The city gained preeminence in southern Syria when Ezron, the claimant to Aram-Zobah's throne who was denied kingship of the federation, fled Beqaa and captured Damascus by force in 965 BC. He overthrew the city's tribal governor and founded the independent entity of Aram-Damascus. As this state expanded south, it prevented the Kingdom of Israel from spreading north and the two kingdoms soon clashed as they both sought to dominate trading hegemony in the east. Under Ezron's grandson, Ben-Hadad I (880–841 BC), and his successor Hazael, Damascus annexed Bashan (modern-day Hauran region), and went on the offensive with Israel. This conflict continued until the early 8th century BC, when Ben-Hadad II was captured by Israel after unsuccessfully besieging Samaria. As a result, he granted Israel trading rights in Damascus.
Another possible reason for the treaty between Aram-Damascus and Israel was the common threat of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was trying to expand into the Mediterranean coast. In 853 BC, King Hadadezer of Damascus led a Levantine coalition that included forces from the northern Aram-Hamath kingdom and troops supplied by King Ahab of Israel in the Battle of Qarqar against the Neo-Assyrian army. Aram-Damascus was victorious, temporarily preventing the Assyrians from encroaching into Syria. But after Hadadzezer was killed by his successor, Hazael, the Levantine alliance collapsed. Aram-Damascus tried to invade Israel but was interrupted by the renewed Assyrian invasion. Hazael ordered a retreat to the walled part of Damascus while the Assyrians plundered the remainder of the kingdom. Unable to enter the city, they declared their supremacy in the Hauran and Beqa'a valleys.