Syria
POPULATION 17,155,814
SUNNI MUSLIM 74 percent
ALAWITE 12 percent
CHRISTIAN 10 percent
DRUZE 3 percent
OTHER 1 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Syrian Arab Republic comprises only a small portion of the area historically referred to as Syria, or Bilad al-Sham, which included (in addition to present-day Syria) Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and part of Turkey. From the earliest times Syria has formed a crossroads of military and trade routes between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia, as well as being the object of invasion and occupation by powerful kingdoms, empires, and dynasties, which provides part of the explanation for the geographic distribution and closeknit character of Syria's religious minorities. Contemporary Syria is a small, developing, middle-income country with a diverse landscape, consisting of a narrow Mediterranean coast extending between Lebanon and Turkey, paralleled by several mountain ranges, and with semiarid and desert plateau to the east. Also bordering Syria are Iraq, Jordan, and Israel.
Although almost three-quarters of the inhabitants of present-day Syria are Sunni Muslim, the area has been and remains home to diverse religious groups, including several branches of Shiite Islam (Alawite, Druze, Ismailite, and Twelver Shiite); Jews, who migrated to the area in the thirteenth century B.C.E.; and Yazidis, predominantly Kurdish-speaking adherents to an ancient and heterodox religion that arrived in Syria from Iraq in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
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