Latakia
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اللاذقية / al-Lāḏiqiyya Latakia |
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| Coordinates | 35 ° 31 '25 " N , 35 ° 47' 30" E | ||
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| Basic data | |||
| Country | Syria | ||
| Latakia | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | SY-LA | ||
| height | 35 m | ||
| surface | 58 km² | ||
| Metropolitan area | 108 km² | ||
| Residents | 402,700 (2012) | ||
| Metropolitan area | 1,255,500 | ||
| density | 6,943.1 Ew. / km² | ||
| Metropolitan area | 11,625 Ew. / km² | ||
| Website | esyria.sy/elatakia/ ( Arabic ) | ||
| politics | |||
| governor | Abdulqader Mohammad al-Sheikh | ||
 Typical house canyon. South city center
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Latakia , also Lattakia , Ladiqiya , the ancient Laodicea or Laodikeia ( Greek Λαοδίκεια , Turkish Lazkiye , Arabic اللاذقية, DMG al-Lāḏiqiyya , in the dialect il-Lāzʾiyye ), with its port is the only large Syrian port city on the Mediterranean and at the same time the capital of the Latakia governorate .
location
Latakia is located 50 kilometers south of the Turkish border in a narrow, agriculturally intensively used coastal strip, which is bordered in the east by the Jebel Ansariye mountain range . The distance from Damascus is around 350 kilometers, from Aleppo 180 kilometers. The closest cities are Jisr el-Shughur , about 70 kilometers northeast, across the Ansariyah Mountain on the Orontes , and Jabla , a fishing village 20 kilometers south on the coast.
population
Latakia is considered the Syrian capital of the Alawites , although a Sunni majority lives in it. A large minority Greek Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholic , in smaller numbers Syrian Orthodox , Syrian Catholic and Armenian - apostolic Christians. All religious groups are relatively liberal and give the city a cosmopolitan flair. The Alawites live mainly in the rural regions of the province. According to an estimate from 2002, the number of Alawis in the province is 70 percent, the number of Christians 14 percent, the Sunnis 12 percent and 2 percent are Ismailis . The city has 383,786 inhabitants (2004 census). A calculation for 2012 names 402,700 inhabitants.
history
In the 2nd millennium BC At the site of Latakia there was the small settlement Ramatha, which belonged to the sphere of influence of Ugarit . Alexander the Great moved after his victory over the Persians in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. Through the place. Only after his death in 323 BC When Syria fell to the Seleucids , Seleukos I founded around 300 BC. A city that he named after his mother Laodike . Together with Antioch , Apamea and Seleukia , Laodicea formed a tetrapolis . These city complexes had a similar structure into rectangular blocks of houses measuring about 120 by 57 meters ( insulae ) and formed the basis for the Hellenization of Syrian Asia Minor. The port has been in use since the early Roman Empire . In today's Latakia, the only ancient building remains are a tetrapylon built by the Roman emperor Septimius Severus at a crossroads and four columns of a temple of Bacchus. The framework of the ancient city was formed by the Cardo , which ran from north to south , one of its three crossing axes led to the Tetrapylon, another connected the port with the citadel. With the division of the empire in 395 , the city came under the Byzantine Empire . The Nikolauskirche was built in the 6th century.
Latakia was conquered by the Arabs in 638. In 969, however, the Byzantines succeeded in taking advantage of the previous period of instability during the Abbasid rule and regaining the city. The Seljuks under Malik Shah I conquered it in 1084, but this time it was taken by the crusaders of the First Crusade already 13 years later, in 1097 . After some disputes with the Byzantines, in 1108 it became part of the Principality of Antioch , one of the Crusader states .
The Sahyun Castle is located 35 kilometers from Latakia in the middle of a coniferous forest area in the steep coastal mountains. It also came into the hands of the Crusaders in 1108, but was defeated by Sultan Saladin in 1188 . After the conquest of large parts of the Principality of Antioch by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars I , who thereby brought about the end of the Principality of Antioch, the city fell to the County of Tripoli in 1260 and was conquered by the Mamluks in 1287 like the Sahyun Castle.
During the Ottoman rule there was economic stagnation from the 16th century, the seaport was neglected in favor of other port cities such as Alexandretta , Beirut and Tripoli . Several earthquakes in the late 17th and 18th centuries prevented the city from recovering. In the 19th century the harbor was so silted up that most ships had to anchor outside.
Around 1914 Latakia was a small town with 7000 inhabitants, which after the end of the First World War in 1920 became part of the French mandate area and within this, due to its high Alawite population, became the capital of the Alawite state . With the cession of İskenderun to Turkey in 1939, Latakia remained as the only seaport for Syria, which was independent in 1945. The expansion of the port, which began under the French mandate, was continued with a generous expansion program from 1950. According to reports from this year, the Syrian government invited American experts to oversee the construction of the port. In 1956 there were still no quays for large ships. Their goods first had to be reloaded in barges at sea . Since 1957, most of Syrian grain and cotton exports have been shipped via Latakia.
In 1956, President Shukri al-Quwatli signed a treaty with leading politicians in the Soviet Union under which Syria would receive economic and military aid. At the same time, Soviet planes, tanks and other military equipment arrived in the port of Latakia. In 1957, the Soviet Union proposed the construction of a port for the Soviet Navy at Latakia. Later , a small Syrian military port was built in Minat al-Bayda , eleven kilometers north. Instead of Latakia in 1971, the Soviet Navy received part of the Tartus naval base as a base.
Urban growth through rural exodus led to the construction of extensive barracks and adobe houses on the outskirts of the city. From 1940 to 1967 the population tripled. With the beginning of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, the Lebanese seaports of Beirut and Tripoli failed for Syrian trade and Latakia had to take over their tasks.
After the Second World War, Latakia received rather little support during the power struggles within the government, to which local Alawite groups were in opposition. This changed when Hafiz al-Assad came to power in 1970, who, as an Alawite born in the region, began to generously support projects in the city through family relationships. In addition to the existing football stadium, he left an oversized stadium (al-Assad stadium) with 35,000 seats three kilometers north of the center and an international airport, Bassel Al-Assad International Airport (20 kilometers south, near his birthplace Qardaha ).
Latakia is one of the scenes of the Syrian civil war , which is waged by insurgents and terrorist organizations against President Bashar al-Assad and his government. Protesters were shot dead in several demonstrations. The Syrian government blamed armed provocateurs for the attacks on members of the opposition. According to eyewitnesses, the Syrian army fired on the city from warships in mid-August 2011. However, the state news agency SANA denied that Latakia had been attacked from the sea. According to her, two police officers and four unidentified armed men were killed. The United States Department of State was also unable to confirm reports of shelling by the Syrian Navy . Russia delivers consumer goods, including weapons, via the port of Latakia and is present in the port with warships. In the late summer of 2015, the Russian Federation moved fighter planes to Basil al-Assad International Airport in order to use them against Islamist fighters in the civil war. In addition to a handful of armored personnel carriers, nine T-90s and a few self-propelled guns were stationed on this provisional base for security .
Cityscape
The port was expanded into a modern container port from the 1970s in the area of the city center, with the result that the Corniche , which was formerly a waterfront promenade, is bordered by a high wall on the sea side throughout the city. The modern business center with multi-storey new buildings for high-end consumer goods has developed over the last few decades in place of rows of houses from the French mandate. Only a few meters of a narrow alley are left of an even older Arab old town. It shows that Latakia consisted of tightly packed houses with massive limestone walls and vaulted, windowless ground floor rooms that were used as workshops and shops. Uniform five- to six-story apartment blocks extend the city center beyond the train station located 1.5 kilometers to the east. Near the coast to the south, a residential part of the city is followed by warehouses belonging to the port.
The most recent expansion of the residential development is to the north. Since around 2000, modern residential complexes with condominiums have been built in the area and north of the fishing and yacht harbor three to four kilometers from the center. The town's villa area is located on the Ibn Hani headland, eight kilometers north. There are several luxury hotels lined up on the fine sandy beach known as the Cote d'Azur . The Ugaritic excavation site Ras Ibn Hani is located on the north coast of the peninsula .
economy
In 1971 1.6 million tons of freight were loaded in the port, after the expansion in 1981 it was 3.6 million tons. Metal, machinery and chemicals are imported. The export goods include the petroleum products bitumen and asphalt, grain, cotton, vegetable oil and tobacco (" Latakia tobacco "). The largest area of the port with 43 hectares is occupied by the container terminal, the storage capacity is 15,000 to 17,000 containers. Only the oil that has been extracted in the oil fields of northeast Syria since the 1970s is transported via a pipeline to the port of Tartus and exported from there.
With the Syrian civil war , the export of drugs produced in Syria (e.g. in Kusseir ) began via the seaport of Latakia in order to obtain foreign currency through drug trafficking , which the Syrian state made difficult to obtain due to international sanctions. In 2020 alone, members of the al-Assad family shipped over 128 million Captagon pills to the world from there.
Fishing covers regional needs. Grain, cotton, tobacco and fruit are grown in the area. National and foreign tourism is concentrated on the beach of the Ibn Hani peninsula, the season lasts from spring to mid-October. The main attraction is Ugarit, 16 kilometers to the north .
Education and culture
The most important and best-known educational institution in the city is the Tischrin University . It was founded in 1971 by President Hafiz al-Assad and is the third largest university in the country.
Latakia is also the namesake of a Syrian, fire-dried tobacco variety that is used, for example, as flavoring tobacco in classic English pipe tobacco . It gives the different types of pipe tobacco, which are mixed from different tobacco, a typical strong note. Another Latakia tobacco variety comes from Cyprus . Latakia tobaccos are valued by their lovers because they remove the burning tips on the tongue when smoking, especially the tobacco varieties from Virginia.
There are three sports clubs in the city: Tischrin , Hutteen and AL EMAD .
Every year in August there is a big "Festival of Love" (Al-Mahaba Festival) in Latakia . This festival offers concerts, other cultural events and sports activities.
The city museum, opened in 1986, with some finds from Ugarit, is housed in an Ottoman Khan .
climate
It rains more on the coast than in the rest of the country. The precipitation falls mainly in the months of November to March. The highest amounts of just over 160 millimeters each are registered in December and January. The summer months are practically rain-free. The average maximum daily temperatures are between 15.6 ° C in January and 29.7 ° C in August.
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Latakia
Source: WMO ; wetterkontor.de
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Personalities
Sons and daughters
- Hanna Mina (1924–2018), writer
- Anisa Machluf (1930–2016), wife of President Hafiz al-Assad
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ H. Zain, Mazen, H. Sabbagh: New Governor of Lattakia sworn in. In: Syrian Arab News Agency . April 23, 2011, archived from the original on April 26, 2011 ; Retrieved September 4, 2011 .
- ↑ James Minahan: Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations. Ethnic and National Groups around the World. Greenwood Publishing Group, Santa Barbara 2002, p. 79.
- ^ The governorates of Syria and all cities of more than 35,000 inhabitants. citypopulation.de
- ↑ Population statistics ( memento of the original dated December 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Yaacov Ro'i: From Encroachment to Involvement. A Documentary Study of Soviet Policy in the Middle East, 1945–1973. Halsted Press, New York 1975, pp. 84, 227, 242.
- ^ Eugen Wirth : Syria, a geographical country study. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1971, p. 366.
- ↑ Dead in Lattakia. In: Junge Welt . March 28, 2011.
- ↑ Navy shells Syrian port city - 26 dead. Reuters, August 15, 2011.
- ↑ UPDATE 1-US unable to confirm reported Syrian naval shelling. Reuters, Aug 15, 2011 - 5:55 pm GMT.
- ↑ Cyprus stops Syria-bound Russian ammunition ship. In: The Guardian. January 11, 2012.
- ↑ Putin has military operations abroad approved. In: The world. Me from September 30, 2015, accessed September 30, 2015.
- ↑ Russia is said to have moved tanks to Syria. In: sueddeutsche.de. September 14, 2015, accessed October 1, 2015 .
- ↑ 1980-1983 Expansion of Lattakia Harbor - Lattakia. TCC photos of the port expansion
- ↑ Port of Lattakia. World Port Source
- ↑ Christoph Reuter, DER SPIEGEL: The Family War of Damascus - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved July 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Christoph Reuter, DER SPIEGEL: Italy: Has the Islamic State smuggled 14 tons of Capatgon tablets? - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved July 3, 2020 .
- ↑ Weather Information for Lattakia. World Weather Information Service
