Basics on Syria

Syria is a Middle Eastern country that is nestled between Turkey, which lies just above it, then Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon, moving clockwise. The western part of Syria is considered the Mediterranean Sea’s eastern shore.

It’s just a bit bigger than North Dakota.

The population is about 22,457,336. (Imagine that many people in ND--that's pretty dense!) Millions are younger in age, rather than older, and the male to female ratio remains about even across each age bracket. Syrians aged 0-24 years make up 54.7% of the population, and those 55 and older comprise 8.5%. (Compare that to the United States where citizens aged 0-24 represent 33.7% and citizens 55+ represent 26.2%.)

Ninety percent of the population is Muslim and Arabic is the official language.

Damascus is the capital, which is considered to be “one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities,” according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s The World Factbook. Like Jerusalem, Damascus holds a lot of religious and historical significance for many people.

“Civilization in Syria goes back thousands of years, but the country as it exists today is very young.” (Quote from this Washington Post article.) This is because of huge structural shifts in the government, which I’ll go into more in the next post.

Syria map adapted from MapMaker at National Geographic. "Map courtesy National Geographic. National Geographic does not review or endorse content added to this map by others."

Other sources: CIA World Factbook, cited Washington Post article