36°12N 37°10E, pop (2000e) 1 853 000. Capital city of Halab governorate, NW Syria; 350 km/217 mi N of Damascus; chief commercial and industrial centre of N Syria; airport; road and rail junction; university (1960); industrial refrigeration plant; old city, a world heritage site; Cotton Festival (Sep).
Aleppo (or Halab Arabic: حلب meaning "he milked", 36°13′N 37°10′E) is a city in northern Syria, capital of the Aleppo Governorate. The city has a population of around 1.7 million (1999), making it the second largest city in the country after Damascus. It is one of the oldest cities in the region, known to antiquity as Khalpe, to the Greeks as Beroea, and to the Turks as Halep, and it occupies a strategic trading point midway between the sea and the Euphrates;
The main role of the city was as a trading place, as it sat at the crossroads of two trade routes and mediated the trade from India, the Tigris and Euphrates regions and the route coming from Damascus in the South, which traced the base of the mountains rather than the rugged seacoast. Although trade was often directed away from the city for political reasons, it continued to thrive until the Europeans began to use the Cape route to India and later to utilise the route through Egypt to the Red Sea. Since then the city has declined and its chief exports now are the agricultural products of the surrounding region, mainly wheat and cotton, pistachios, olives and sheep.
History
Because the modern city occupies its ancient site, Aleppo has scarcely been touched by archaeologists. The city remained under Hittite control until perhaps 800 BC before passing through the hands of the Assyrians and the Persian Empire and being captured by the Greeks in 333 BC, when Seleucus Nicator renamed the settlement Beroea. The city remained in Greek or Seleucid hands until 64 BC, when Syria was conquered by the Romans.
The city became part of the Byzantine Empire before falling to Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid in 637; Returning to native control in 1317, decades after the Battle of Ain Jalut, it became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, when the city had around 50,000 inhabitants.
On August 9, 1138, a deadly earthquake ravaged the city and the surrounding area.
The city remained Ottoman until the empire's collapse, but was occasionally riven with internal feuds as well as attacks of the plague and later cholera from 1823. The city revived when it came under French colonial rule but slumped again following the decision to give Antioch to Turkey in 1938-1939.
Aleppo was named by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) as the capital of Islamic culture in 2006.
Design
There is a relatively clear division between old and new Aleppo. The medieval castle in the city -- known as the Citadel of Aleppo -- is built atop a huge, partially artificial mound rising 50 m above the city.
As an ancient trading centre, Aleppo also has impressive suqs (shopping streets) and khan (commercial courtyards). In the 1970s, large parts of the older city were demolished to allow for the construction of modern flat blocks.
Population and religion
While more than 70% of Aleppo's inhabitants are Sunni Muslims (mainly Arabs, but also Kurds and a few ethnic Turks and Circassians), Aleppo is home to one of the richest and most diversified Christian communities of the Orient. Christians belonging to a dozen different congregations (with prevalence of the Armenian and Syriac Orthodox Church and other Orthodox denominations) represent between 15% and 20% of its population, making it the city with the second biggest Christian community in the Middle East after Beirut, Lebanon.
The city had a large Jewish population in ancient times, traditionally since the period of King David.
The city has many mosques including the Madrasa Halawiya. During the Crusades, when the invaders pillaged the surrounding countryside, the city's chief judge converted St. Helena's cathedral into a mosque, and in the middle of the 12th century the famous leader Nur al-Din founded the madrasa or religious school that has encompassed the former cathedral.
Notable people
See also: Rulers of Aleppo Paul of Aleppo, 17th century Archdeacon of Aleppo, traveler and chronicler.Local
'Ittihad club of Aleppo" forum for local sport and aleppo community .Commercial
Aleppo Soap World Heritage Sites in SyriaAleppo |
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