Syrian Coastal Mountain Range

Coordinates: 35°36′N 36°14′E / 35.60°N 36.24°E / 35.60; 36.24
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Syrian Coastal Mountain Range
سلسلة الجبال الساحلية
Coastal Mountain Range
Highest point
PeakNabi Yunis
Elevation1,562 m (5,125 ft)
Dimensions
Length150 km (93 mi)
Geography
LocationSyria
Range coordinates35°36′N 36°14′E / 35.60°N 36.24°E / 35.60; 36.24

The Coastal Mountain Range (

Arabic: سلسلة الجبال الساحلية, 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 in northwestern Syria running north–south, parallel to the coastal plain.[1] The mountains have an average width of 32 kilometres (20 mi), and their average peak elevation is just over 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) with the highest peak, Nabi Yunis, reaching 1,562 metres (5,125 ft), east of Latakia.[1]
In the north the average height declines to 900 metres (3,000 ft), and to 600 metres (2,000 ft) in the south.

Name

Classically, this range was known as the Bargylus;[2] a name mentioned by Pliny the Elder.[3] The Greek: Μπάργκυλος, romanizedBargylus) had its roots in the name of an ancient city-kingdom called Barga most probably located in the vicinity of the mountains;[4] it was a city of the Eblaite Empire in the third millennium BC,[5] and then a vassal kingdom of the Hittites,[6] who named the mountain range after Barga.[7]

In the medieval period were known as the Jabal Bahra (جبل بهراء) after the Arab tribe of

Bahra’.[8] They are also sometimes known as the Nusayriyah Mountains or the Ansarieh Mountains (جبال النصيرية Jibāl an-Nuṣayriyah) or the Alawiyin Mountains (جبال العلويين 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

Anti-Lebanon Mountains of Lebanon, in a feature known as the Homs Gap.[1]

Between 1920 and 1936, the mountains formed parts of the eastern border of the Alawite State within the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (2005) "Country Profile: Syria" (PDF), page 5.
  2. OCLC 325913985
  3. ^ William Smith (1857). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography: Iabadius-Zymethus. Little, Brown and Company. p. 1071.
  4. OCLC 718866
    .
  5. .
  6. .
  7. ^ James Orr (1930). The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Vol. 3. p. 1400.
  8. .
  9. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica – Syria