Syrian Coastal Mountain Range
Syrian Coastal Mountain Range | |
---|---|
سلسلة الجبال الساحلية | |
Highest point | |
Peak | Nabi Yunis |
Elevation | 1,562 m (5,125 ft) |
Dimensions | |
Length | 150 km (93 mi) |
Geography | |
Location | Syria |
Range coordinates | 35°36′N 36°14′E / 35.60°N 36.24°E |
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, romanized: Bargylus) 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
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
- ^ a b c Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (2005) "Country Profile: Syria" (PDF), page 5.
- OCLC 325913985
- ^ William Smith (1857). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography: Iabadius-Zymethus. Little, Brown and Company. p. 1071.
- OCLC 718866.
- ISBN 978-1-57506-060-6.
- ISBN 9780931464072.
- ^ James Orr (1930). The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Vol. 3. p. 1400.
- ISBN 1860649122.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica – Syria