Syrian Coastal Mountain Range

{{Short description|Mountain range in Syria}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox mountain | name = Syrian Coastal Mountain Range | other_name = {{lang|ar|سلسلة الجبال الساحلية}} | image = Syria 2004 CIA map-2010-07-09.JPG | image_caption = Coastal Mountain Range | map_caption = Map of Syria showing the Mountain range | highest = Nabi Yunis | elevation_m = 1562 | length_km = 150 | location = Syria | range_coordinates = {{Coord|35.60|N|36.24|E|region:SY|display=inline,title}} | map_image = }}

The '''Coastal Mountain Range''' ({{langx|ar|سلسلة الجبال الساحلية}}, ''Silsilat al-Jibāl as-Sāḥilīyah''), also called '''Jabal al-Ansariya''', '''Jabal an-Nusayria''' or '''Jabal al-`Alawīyin''' (Ansari, Nusayri or Alawi Mountains), is a mountain range in northwestern Syria running north–south, parallel to the coastal plain.<ref name="Syria-profile">Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (2005) [http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Syria.pdf "Country Profile: Syria"] (PDF), page 5.</ref> The mountains have an average width of {{convert|32|km}}, and their average peak elevation is just over {{convert|1,200|m}} with the highest peak, Nabi Yunis, reaching {{convert|1562|m}}, east of Latakia.<ref name="Syria-profile" /> In the north the average height declines to {{convert|900|m}}, and to {{convert|600|m}} in the south.

This mountain range has been home to an Alawite population since the Middle Ages.<ref name=":0" />

==Name== Classically, this range was known as the '''Bargylus''',<ref>Hackett, Horatio B. (editor) (1870) ''Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible: comprising its antiquities, biography, geography, and natural history'' (Volume IV, Regum-Melech to Zuzims) Hurd and Houghton, New York, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FhhrlPxX3d0C&pg=PA3142 page 3142], {{OCLC|325913985}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Millar |first=Fergus |title=The Roman Near East: 31 BC–AD 337 |date=15 March 1995 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-77886-3 |edition= |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |pages=17 |quote=These limestone hills rising to some 1500 m, the ancient Mons Bargylus or present Jebel Ansariyeh, inhabited by an Alawi population since the Middle Ages, have never been open to archaeological investigation, and remain an almost complete blank in the archaeological and social map of the region.}}</ref> a name mentioned by Pliny the Elder.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionarygreek08smitgoog|title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography: Iabadius-Zymethus|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|author=William Smith|page= [https://archive.org/details/dictionarygreek08smitgoog/page/n1095 1071]|year= 1857}}</ref> The name probably had its roots in the name of an ancient city-kingdom called Barga, located in the vicinity of the mountains;<ref>{{cite book|first=Emil Orgetorix Gustav|last=Forrer|chapter=Barga|title=Reallexikon der Assyriologie|language= de|volume= 1|editor1-first=Erich|editor1-last=Ebeling|editor2-first=Bruno|editor2-last=Meissner|page= 401|year= 1928|publisher=Walter de Gruyter & Co|oclc=718866}}</ref> it was a city of the Eblaite Empire in the third millennium BC,<ref name="cedar">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Rwals-oh6kC&pg=PA121|title= Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 4|author1=Cyrus Herzl Gordon |author2=Gary Rendsburg |author3=Nathan H. Winter |page= 121|isbn= 978-1-57506-060-6|year= 2002|publisher= Eisenbrauns}}</ref> and then a vassal kingdom of the Hittites,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1A0OgvXfHlQC&pg=PA227|title=Ugarit in Retrospect: Fifty Years of Ugarit and Ugaritic|author=Gordon Douglas Young|page= 227|year= 1981|publisher=Eisenbrauns |isbn=9780931464072}}</ref> who named the mountain range after Barga.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=orNZAAAAYAAJ|title=The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia|volume= 3|author=James Orr|page= 1400|year= 1930}}</ref>

In the medieval period they were known as the '''Jabal Bahra''' ({{lang|ar|جبل بهراء}}) after the Arab tribe of Bahra'.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Salibi |first1=Kamal |title=A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered |date=2005 |publisher=I. B. Tauris |location=Londo |isbn=1860649122 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t_amYLJq4SQC}}</ref> They are also sometimes known as the '''Nusayriyah Mountains''' or the '''Ansarieh Mountains''' ({{lang|ar|جبال النصيرية}} ''Jibāl an-Nuṣayriyah'') or the '''Alawiyin Mountains''' ({{lang|ar|جبال العلويين}} ''Jibāl al-‘Alawīyin''); both of these names refer to the Alawi ethnoreligious group which has traditionally lived there, though the former term is based on an antiquated label for the community that is now considered insulting.

==Geography== thumb|Syrian Coastal Mountains The western slopes catch moisture-laden winds from the Mediterranean Sea and are thus more fertile and more heavily populated than the eastern slopes. The Orontes River flows north alongside the range on its eastern verge in the Ghab Plain, a {{convert|64|km}} longitudinal trench,<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/578856/Syria/29930/Relief#ref=ref404080 Encyclopædia Britannica – Syria]</ref> and then around the northern edge of the range to flow into the Mediterranean. South of Masyaf there is a large northeast-southwest strike-slip fault which separates An-Nusayriyah Mountain from the coastal Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountains of Lebanon, in a feature known as the Homs Gap.<ref name="Syria-profile" />

Between 1920 and 1936, the mountains formed parts of the eastern border of the Alawite State within the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon.

==References== {{Reflist}}

Category:Mountain ranges of Syria Category:Hama Governorate Category:Homs Governorate