Latakia, also Lattakia, Ladiqiya, ancient Laodicea or Laodikeia (Greek Λαοδίκεια, Turkish Lazkiye, Arabic اللاذقية, DMG al-Lāḏiqiyya, in dialect il-Lāzʾiyye), is the only major Syrian port city on the Mediterranean and at the same time the capital of the Latakia Governorate.
The expansion of the port into a modern container port from the 1970s
onwards took place in the area of the city centre, with the result
that the Corniche, which was originally a waterfront promenade, is now
bordered by a high wall on the sea side throughout the entire city area.
The modern business centre with multi-storey new buildings for high-end
consumer goods has developed in recent decades on the site of rows of
houses from the French mandate period. Only a few metres of a narrow
alley remain of an even older Arab old town. It shows that during the
Ottoman period Latakia consisted of closely packed houses with massive
limestone walls and vaulted, windowless ground floor rooms that were
used as workshops and shops. Uniform five- to six-storey apartment
blocks extend the city centre beyond the train station, which is 1.5
kilometres to the east. Close to the coast to the south, a residential
area is followed by warehouses belonging to the port.
The most
recent expansion of the residential development is towards the north.
Since 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 city's villa area is located on the
Ibn Hani headland, eight kilometers to the north. There, several luxury
hotels line the fine sandy beach known as the Cote d'Azur. The Ugaritic
archaeological site of Ras Ibn Hani is located on the north coast of the
peninsula.
Latakia is located 50 kilometers south of the Turkish border in a narrow, intensively agricultural coastal strip, which is bordered to the east by the Jebel Ansariye mountain range. It is around 350 kilometers from Damascus and 180 kilometers from Aleppo. The nearest cities are Jisr al-Shughur, around 70 kilometers to the northeast, beyond the Ansariyah mountain on the Orontes, and Jabla, a fishing village 20 kilometers south on the coast.
Latakia is considered the Syrian capital of the Alawites, although it is home to a Sunni majority. A large minority are Greek Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholics, and a smaller number are 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 areas of the province. According to an estimate from 2002, the number of Alawites in the province is 70 percent, the number of Christians 14 percent, Sunnis 12 percent, and 2 percent are Ismailis. The city has a population of 383,786 (2004 census). A calculation for 2012 gives 402,700 inhabitants. Due to domestic refugee movements as a result of the Syrian civil war, a resident population of over 700,000 is expected for 2023.
In the 2nd millennium BC, the small settlement of Ramatha, which
belonged to the sphere of influence of Ugarit, existed on the site of
Latakia. Alexander the Great passed through the town after his victory
over the Persians in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC. It was only after
his death in 323 BC, when Syria had fallen to the Seleucids, that
Seleucus I founded a city around 300 BC, which he named after his mother
Laodice. Together with Antioch, Apamea and Seleucia, Laodicea formed a
tetrapolis. These urban complexes had a similar structure in rectangular
blocks (insulae) measuring around 120 by 57 meters and formed the basis
for the Hellenization of Syrian Asia Minor. The port has been used since
the early Roman Empire. The only ancient remains of buildings in today's
Latakia 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 runs from north to
south. One of its three crossing axes led to the tetrapylon, another
connected the harbor with the citadel. With the division of the empire
in 395, the city became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Church of St.
Nicholas was built in the 6th century.
Latakia was conquered by
the Arabs in 638. In 969, however, the Byzantines managed to take
advantage of the previous period of instability during the Abbasid rule
and regain 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
just 13 years later, in 1097. After some disputes with the Byzantines,
it became part of the Principality of Antioch, one of the Crusader
states, in 1108.
35 kilometers from Latakia, Sahyun Castle lies
in the middle of a coniferous forest area in the steep coastal
mountains. It also fell into the hands of the Crusaders in 1108, but was
conquered 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 Sahyun Castle.
During Ottoman rule, economic
stagnation occurred from the 16th century onwards, and the seaport was
neglected in favor of other port cities such as Alexandretta, Beirut and
Tripoli. Several earthquakes at the end of the 17th century and in the
18th century contributed to the city's failure to recover. In the 19th
century, the port was so silted up that most ships had to anchor
outside.
Around 1914, Latakia was a small town with 7,000
inhabitants, which became part of the French mandate in 1920 after the
end of the First World War and, due to its high proportion of Alawites,
the capital of the Alawite state within it. With the cession of
İskenderun to Turkey in 1939, Latakia remained the only seaport for
Syria, which became independent in 1945. The expansion of the port,
which began under the French mandate, was continued with a generous
expansion program from 1950 onwards. According to reports from that
year, the Syrian government invited American experts to oversee the
construction of the port. As late as 1956, there were no quays for large
ships. Their goods had to be transferred to lighters at sea. Since 1957,
most of Syria's grain and cotton exports have been shipped via Latakia.
In 1956, President Shukri al-Quwatli signed a treaty with leading
politicians of the Soviet Union under which Syria would receive economic
and military aid. At the same time, Soviet aircraft, tanks and other
military equipment arrived at the port of Latakia. In 1957, the Soviet
Union proposed building a port for the Soviet Navy near Latakia. A small
Syrian military port was later built in Minat al-Bayda, eleven
kilometers to the north. In 1971, the Soviet Navy received part of the
Tartus naval base as a base instead of Latakia.
Urban growth due
to rural exodus led to the construction of extensive barracks and
mud-house settlements on the outskirts of the city. Between 1940 and
1967, the population tripled. With the beginning of the Lebanese Civil
War in 1975, the Lebanese seaports of Beirut and Tripoli were no longer
available for Syrian trade and Latakia had to take over their functions.
After the Second World War, Latakia received relatively little
support during the period of power struggles within the government, to
which local Alawite groups were in opposition. This changed when Hafez
al-Assad came to power in 1970. As an Alawite born in the region, he
began to generously support projects in the city through family
connections. In addition to the existing football stadium, he had an
oversized stadium (al-Assad Stadium) with 35,000 seats built three
kilometers north of the center and an international airport, the Bassel
Al-Assad International Airport (20 kilometers south, near his birthplace
Qardaha).
Latakia was one of the theaters of the Syrian civil
war, which is being waged by insurgents against President Bashar
al-Assad and his government. Protesters were shot dead at several
demonstrations. The Syrian government blamed armed provocateurs for the
attacks on opposition members. 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 them, two police officers and four unidentified armed
men were killed. The United States State Department was also unable to
confirm the reports of shelling by the Syrian Navy. Russia supplies
consumer goods, including weapons, through the port of Latakia and has
warships in the port. In late summer 2015, the Russian Federation moved
fighter planes to Basil al-Assad International Airport to use them
against Islamist fighters in the civil war. For security purposes, nine
T-90s and a few self-propelled guns were stationed at this makeshift
base, in addition to a handful of armored personnel carriers.
In 1971, 1.6 million tons of cargo were loaded into the port, after
the expansion in 1981 this figure rose to 3.6 million tons. Metal,
machinery and chemicals are imported. Export goods include the petroleum
products bitumen and asphalt, grain, cotton, vegetable oil and tobacco
("Latakia tobacco"). The largest area of the port, 43 hectares, is
taken up by the container terminal, with storage capacity of 15,000 to
17,000 containers. Only the crude oil 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 had become difficult for the Syrian state to obtain
due to international sanctions. In 2020 alone, members of the al-Assad
family shipped over 128 million Captagon pills from there to the world.
Fishing meets 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.
The city's most important and best-known educational institution is
Tishrin 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 a flavoring tobacco in classic English pipe tobacco. It
gives the various types of pipe tobacco, which are mixed from different
tobaccos, a typical strong note. Another Latakia tobacco variety comes
from Cyprus. Latakia tobaccos are appreciated by its lovers because they
take away the burning tips on the tongue when smoking, especially with
Virginia tobacco varieties.
There are three sports clubs in the
city: Tishrin, Hutteen and AL EMAD.
Every year in August, Latakia
hosts a large "Festival of Love" (Al-Mahaba Festival). This festival
offers concerts, other cultural events and sports activities.
The
city museum, which opened in 1986 and contains some finds from Ugarit,
is housed in an Ottoman khan.
It rains more on the coast than in the rest of the country. Precipitation falls mainly in the months of November to March. The highest amounts, with just over 160 millimeters each, are recorded in December and January. The summer months are practically rain-free. The average daily maximum temperatures are between 15.6 °C in January and 29.7 °C in August.