Latakia

Latakia (Arabic: اللاذقية al-lādhiqiyah) is the largest coastal city in the Syrian Arab Republic and the republic's fourth most-populous city (after Aleppo, Damascus and Homs). In addition to being a popular resort destination for foreign and domestic tourists alike, Latakia is also an important Arab Union port city (the only major seaport in Syria) and home to Arsuzi Naval Station, a major base of the Arab Navy.

Although the site on which Latakia now stands has been inhabited since the 2nd millennium BC, the city was founded in the 4th century BC under the rule of the Seleucids. Latakia was subsequently ruled by the Romans until the 8th century AD and the Umayyad and then Abbasid Caliphates in the 8th–10th centuries AD. Under caliphate rule, the Byzantines frequently attacked the city, periodically recapturing it before quickly losing it again to the Arabs, particularly the Fatimids. Afterward, Latakia was ruled successively by the Seljuk Turks, Crusaders (namely the Principality of Antioch), Ayyubids, Mamluks and the Ottomans. Following the First World War, Latakia was assigned to the French Mandate, in which it served as the capital of an autonomous Alawite territory. This autonomous territory became the Alawite State in 1922, proclaiming its independence a number of times until reintegrating into Syria in 1944 shortly before the country achieved independence.

Following the establishment of the United Arab Republic in 1958, of which Syria was one of two founding members (alongside Egypt), Latakia came under the direct authority of the Cairo government; however, after the end of the Arab Wars of Unification (also known as the Arab Revolution) in 1989, the United Arab Republic was restructured from a unitary state to a federation and renamed the Union of Arab Republics; each member republic, including Syria, formed its own republican government responsible for most internal affairs, and the new Latakia municipal council was formed via a devolution process in which the Syrian Arab Congress delegated to Latakia the right to self-government.