Syria

State · Capital: Damascus

Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant, with a population of 26 million; its capital and largest city is Damascus. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule as a French Mandate, gaining de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 and de facto independence with the withdrawal of French troops in April 1946. The 1963 coup by the military committee of the Ba'ath Party established a one-party state under martial law, and Hafez al-Assad came to power in a 1970 coup, succeeded by his son Bashar in 2000, making Syria a hereditary dictatorship. During the Arab Spring in 2011, opposition protests escalated into a 13-year civil war that drew in several countries and triggered a refugee crisis.