History, Language & Culture Syria

In English, the original name "Syria" corresponds to the Levant. (Arabic as al-Sham) As modern states encompass the location of many ancient kingdoms and empires. Including the Ebla civilization (Ebla) in the 3rd millennium BC, in the Islamic period, Damascus was the capital city of the Khadliifah Umayyah state. And the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.

Modern Syria was established after World War I as a French mandate. And it is the largest Arab state that arose from the Levant, the Arabian former Ottoman rule. Syria gained independence in April 1946 as a parliamentary republic. After independence, there was chaos. Between 1958 and 1961, Syria joined a brief union with Egypt, which ended in a coup. Syria, under the Emergency Law between 1963 and 2011, halted the constitutional majority of its citizens' protections. And the government system is considered non-democratic.Bashar al-Azad was president since 2000, inherited from his father, Hafez al Azad, who served between 1970 and 2000. Official languages: Arabic