Syria, a country of western Asia, embracing the regions that lie between the Levant and the Euphrates from Mount Taurus in the north to the southern border of Palestine, or even to the peninsula of Sinai. The eastern boundaries south of the Euphrates are not clearly defined or marked off from the wide expanse of the Arabian desert. The physical conformation of Syria is throughout simple and uniform. A range of mountains, split in the north into two parallel chains—Libanus and Anti-Libanus—fronts the Mediterranean, ranging in height from 6000 feet in the north up to 10,000 feet in the central parts, but falling again in the south to 3500 feet. Behind these mountains lies a tableland, that gradually falls away eastwards to the desert. The separate districts of Syria have been already described in geographical detail in the articles LEBANON, PALESTINE, PHOENICIA, BASHAN, HAURAN, DEAD SEA, JORDAN. The prevailing winds being westerly, the slopes of the mountains next the Mediterranean and the valleys ensonced among them, together with the immediate seaboard, get a tolerably plentiful supply of moisture during the rainy half of the year (October to May); snow even falls on the highest summits of the mountain-ranges. The climate on the plateau is generally dry, and in certain localities hot. The valley of the Jordan is remarkably hot. The soil is in many parts possessed of good fertility, and in ancient times, when irrigation was more extensively practised, yielded a much greater return than it does at the present time. Damascus is noted for its gardens and orchards. Hauran produces excellent wheat. Northern Syria is the home of the olive. The vine grows in nearly all parts of the country. Fruit (oranges, figs, &c.) is cultivated on the coast plains. Sheep and goats are the most important of the domestic animals. The principal exports are silk (£405,000 to £665,000 annually), cereals (£150,000 to £300,000), wool, olive-oil, lemons and oranges, soap, sponges, sesame, liquorice, cottons, and tobacco. The total value is about 1 to 1½ million pounds sterling. The imports reach pretty nearly the same figure; but all the statistics affecting Syria are very imperfect. Manchester goods (£768,000 to £944,000) constitute the chief item in the imports. Besides these there are woollens, rice, copper and iron, sacking, timber, and hides. The chief port is Beyrout, and to it must be added Acre, Caïffa (Haïfa), Tyre, and Tripoli. Railways, to connect Damascus with Acre and with Beyrout, and Tripoli with the interior, are projected. The population is estimated at 2,677,000 and at 1,450,000, and again at about 2,000,000. The bulk of the inhabitants are Mohammedans, but do not all profess the orthodox Sunnite creed; for instance, there are the Druses (q.v.), certain sects of Shiites, and others. The Christians make up about one-fifth of the total (see below). The principal ethnic elements in the population are descendants of the ancient Syrians (Aramæans) and Arabs, these last both settled and nomad; besides there are Jews, Turks, and Europeans.
The earliest historical records that treat of Syria are those that relate the histories of the Hittites (q.v.), the Phœnicians (q.v.), and the Hebrews (see JEWS). The first named were for several centuries supreme in northern Syria, and at times stretched their authority southwards as far as the hills of southern Palestine. Yet they had most formidable rivals on both sides of them in Assyria and Egypt, from both of which countries their subjects derived no small share of their skill in manufacturing industry, and in the arts and manners of life. The other two peoples mentioned occupied the most prominent place in southern Syria. Nevertheless at different periods we read of flourishing Aramæan (Semitic) principalities, such as Damascus, Hamath, Zobah, and similar petty states. These, as well as most of northern Syria, were conquered during the 8th century B.C. by the kings of Assyria; the Jewish kingdoms experienced the same fate at the hands of the Babylonian kings in the 7th and 6th centuries. As previous to the 9th century B.C. Syria had been the battle-ground of the Egyptian and Hittite armies, so after that period it was, as a province of Assyria (Babylonia), involved in the struggle between that great empire and Egypt. (The Greeks first knew this region as a province of Assyria; hence the contracted name Syria.) Towards the end of the 6th century B.C. Syria fell under the dominion of the Persian empire; and two centuries later it was conquered by Alex- ander of Macedon. When his empire broke to pieces the Seleucidæ (q.v.) made Antioch the capital of their empire of Syria. From the Seleucidæ it passed, through the hands of Tigranes of Armenia, to the Romans, for whom it was won by Pompey in 64 B.C. Under these new masters the country flourished and became celebrated for its thriving industries, its commercial prosperity, and its architectural magnificence (see BAALBEK, PALMYRA; also NABATÆANS). On the division of the Roman world Syria became part of the Byzantine empire, and of it remained a province until its conquest by the Mohammedan Arabs in 636. It still continued to be prosperous under the Arabs and their successors the Egyptian sovereigns, in spite of the unsettled period of the Crusades (q.v.). The first severe blow it suffered came from the Mongols in 1260, and its ruin was completed when in 1516 it passed from the Egyptians to the Ottoman Turks, its present rulers.
See Burton and Drake, Unexplored Syria (2 vols. Lond. 1872); Lady Burton, Inner Life of Syria (1875); Von Südenhorst, Syrien und seine Bedeutung für den Welthandel (Vienna, 1873); Lortet, La Syrie d'Aujourd'hui (Paris, 1884); Baedeker's Palestine and Syria (by Professor A. Socin); C. R. Conder, Heth and Moab (1883); De Vogué, Syrie Centrale; Architecture Civile et Religieuse du 1er au 7me Siècle (Paris, 1865-77); and books quoted under the various articles cited above.
The Church of the Syrian Rite was that portion of the oriental church which had its seat in Syria, and which was anciently comprehended in the patriarchate of Antioch and (after that of Jerusalem obtained a distinct jurisdiction) partly in the patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Syrian Church of the early centuries was exceedingly flourishing; before the end of the 4th century it numbered 119 distinct sees, with a Christian population of several millions. The first blow to its prosperity was the fatal division which arose from the controversies on the incarnation (see EUTYCHES; GREEK CHURCH, Vol. V. pp. 397-399). The Eutychian heresy, in one or other of its forms, obtained wide extension in Syria; the Moslem conquest accelerated the ruin thus begun; and from the 7th century downwards this once flourishing church declined into a weak and spiritless community, whose chief seat was in the mountains, and whose best security from oppression lay in the belief on the part of the conquerors of its utterly fallen and contemptible condition. In Syria there are now, beside the dominant Moslems and the Druses (q.v.), Orthodox Greeks, United Greeks, United Syrians, and Maronites (q.v.)—the three latter in communion with the Roman Catholic Church (q.v.), besides Protestant missions. See also NESTORIANS; THOMAS (CHRISTIANS OF ST); LITURGY (p. 661); SEMITIC LANGUAGES; BIBLE (p. 126); and O. H. Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery (1895).