Latakia
Latakia, city and muḥāfaẓah (governorate), northwestern Syria. The city, capital of the governorate, is situated on the low-lying Raʿs Ziyārah promontory that projects into the Mediterranean Sea. It was known to the Phoenicians as Ramitha and to the Greeks as Leuke Akte. Its present name is a corruption of Laodicea, for the mother of Seleucus II (3rd century bce).
Ancient Ramitha replaced the earlier settlement of Ugarit (Raʿs Shamra) to the north, which was destroyed in the 12th century bce. During the Seleucid period (3rd and 2nd centuries bce), it flourished as a port and one of north Syria’s principal cities, but in the following centuries earthquakes twice destroyed the city. Latakia was taken in 638 ce by the Arabs, in 1103 by the Crusaders, and in 1188 by Saladin. Subsequently the town was administered by Christians from Tripoli, Muslims from Hama, and the Ottoman Turks; it came within the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon in 1920. French authorities promoted autonomy for the Alawite community in the area around Latakia and inaugurated a trend of Alawite immigration to the city from the surrounding mountainous region. Under the regime of Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, Alawites made up about half of the city’s population.
Latakia is now the principal port of Syria; it is located on a good harbor, with an extensive agricultural hinterland. Exports include bitumen and asphalt, cereals, cotton, fruit, eggs, vegetable oil, pottery, and tobacco. Cotton ginning, vegetable oil processing, tanning, and sponge fishing are local industries. Latakia University was founded in 1971 and renamed Tishreen University (after the Arabic name for the calendar month of October, tishrīn) from 1975 to 2024. The city is linked by road to Aleppo, Tripoli, and Beirut. A Russian air base southeast of the city was opened in 2015 during the Syrian Civil War and was used to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad before it was toppled in 2024. All but a few Classical buildings have been destroyed, often by earthquakes; those remaining include a Roman triumphal arch and Corinthian columns known as the colonnade of Bacchus.
Latakia governorate embraces Syria’s fertile Mediterranean coastal area. It is an important agricultural region, producing abundant crops of tobacco, cotton, cereal grains, and fruits. Area governorate, 887 square miles (2,297 square km). Pop. (2004) city, 383,786; governorate, 879,551; (2021 est.) governorate, 1,346,000.