Syria is a Middle Eastern country located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant, with Damascus as its capital. Syria was a cradle of civilization during the Bronze Age, including the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Halab (Aleppo) and Damascus. Syria was ruled by civilizations such as Ebla, the Akkadian Empire, the Hurrians, the Amorites, Ugarit, Yamhad, the Hittites, the Mitanni, Ancient Egypt, and the Assyrians, who lended their name to the land of Suriya. Syria has had a long history of being a diverse region in which Greeks, Romans, Arameans, Assyrians, and Jews resided by the time of the Imperial Roman era; during that time, Syria was an early hotbed of Christianity. Syria was a treasured promise of the Romans due to its location on the Silk Road and the wealth of Syrian cities such as Antioch and Palmyra, and it remained under Roman and Byzantine rule until the Rashidun Arabs conquered the Levant in 640. Damascus became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, and Arabic became the dominant language of Syria, replacing Greek and Aramaic; several Muslim dynasties, from the Umayyads and Abbasids to the Tulunids, the Ikhshidids, the Hamdanids, the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans ruled over the region over the next several centuries. Islam became the dominant faith in Syria, although the Ottoman era saw the mostly peaceful coexistence of Arab Shi'ites, Arab Sunnis, Aramean and Greek Orthodox Christians, Maronite Catholics, Assyrian Christians, Armenians, Kurds, and Jews. During World War I, the Ottomans forced the indigenous Armenian and Assyrian peoples of its empire to take part in death marches into the Syrian desert. Syria briefly attained its independence after the war, but France conquered the Kingdom of Syria in 1920 and crushed a Syrian revolt in 1925. France granted Syria independence in 1936, but the French legislature refused to ratify it, and it was not until April 1946, after a British and French occupation during World War II, that Syrian nationalists and the British forced the French to evacuate the country and make away for a republican government. The nascent republic suffered from political instability, with the Nazi-trained Syrian army suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of Israel in the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and a succession of military coups seizing power in Damascus. In 1958, the Nasserist government of Syria joined Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic, but a group of Ba'athist army officers led by Hafez al-Assad rebelled against the fragile union in 1961 and seized power. The Syrian Ba'ath Party attained full power after a second coup in 1963, with al-Assad's dynasty dominating the country for decades. Syria was again defeated by Israel in 1967 and 1973, resulting in the loss of the Golan Heights. These defeats led to rising Islamist discontent against the secular, socialist regime, resulting in the 1982 Hama massacre and the violent suppression of Islamist sentiment. The Arab Spring protests of 2011 resulted in a new wave of anti-Ba'athist unrest, which quickly devolved from pro-democracy protests into a civil war between Sunni rebels and the Alawite-dominated government. Around 450,000 Christians fled the country due to the rise of jihadist groups such as ISIL and the al-Nusra Front during the Syrian Civil War, while the Kurdish-majority regions of northern Syria formed the autonomous region of Rojava. By the 2020s, Bashar al-Assad's government had restored order to most of the country, while the rebels were confined to Idlib Governorate. By 2023, Syria had a population of 22,933,531 people, of whom 74% were Sunni, 13% Shia, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze.
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