Nine Syrian Cities and Towns from Afrin to Daraa in Order of Recorded Latitude, North to South

Afrin is the northernmost stop, at a recorded latitude of about 36.51 degrees north, in the Aleppo Governorate near the Syria-Turkey border. Its page says the town was founded as a market in the 19th century, takes its name from the Afrin River, and was captured by Turkish-backed forces during Operation Olive Branch in March 2018.

Hasakah is level with Afrin at about 36.51 degrees north, a hair to its south on the recorded values, but lies far to the east in the northeast. Its page says the settlement was established in April 1922 as a French military post that grew into a town, and that the Khabur River flows through the city and is joined from the north by the Jaghjagh River.

Raqqa lies at about 35.95 degrees north on the north bank of the Euphrates, roughly 160 kilometers east of Aleppo. Its page says it was known in antiquity as Callinicum and served as capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809 under Harun al-Rashid, and that it was later declared the capital of the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017.

Latakia, at about 35.52 degrees north, is Syria's principal port and the capital of Latakia Governorate on the Mediterranean coast. Its page says it was formally founded as a Greek city in the fourth century BC under the Seleucid Empire, when Seleucus I Nicator named it Laodikeia on the Coast for his mother, and that it rejoined Syria in 1944 after a period as the French-administered Alawite State.

Qalaat al-Madiq lies just south of Latakia on the latitude scale, at about 35.42 degrees north, on the eastern bank of the Orontes in the al-Ghab plain northwest of Hama. Its page says it stands on the site of the ancient city of Apamea and takes its name from a medieval fortress built there under Muslim rule in the twelfth century.

Jableh sits at about 35.36 degrees north, back on the Mediterranean coast about 25 kilometers south of Latakia. Its page says it was known in antiquity as Gabala, was a Byzantine archbishopric and remains a Latin Catholic titular see, and holds the tomb and mosque of Ibrahim ibn Adham, a Sufi mystic said to have renounced his throne to devote himself to prayer.

Talkalakh lies at about 34.67 degrees north in the Homs Governorate, just north of the Lebanese border and west of the city of Homs. Its page records an elevation of 265 meters, notes that the town is predominantly Sunni Muslim while the surrounding villages are mostly Alawite, and names it as the birthplace of the Arabian horse O'Bajan, foaled there in 1880.

Yabroud lies at about 33.97 degrees north in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, about 80 kilometers north of Damascus, and its page records an elevation of 1,423 meters. The area is home to the Jabroudian caves, discovered in 1930, and to what the page calls the oldest church in Syria, and the town was a rebel stronghold from 2011 until government forces recaptured it in 2014.

Daraa is the southernmost stop, at about 32.63 degrees north, 13 kilometers from the Jordanian border and 90 kilometers south of Damascus on the Damascus-Amman highway. Its page calls it a way station for travelers in the Hauran region and says it became known as the cradle of the Syrian revolution after the 2011 arrest of teenagers for anti-government graffiti sparked protests that grew into the wider uprising.