It is believed that the first Syrian immigrants arrived in the United States from Greater Syria in the 1880s and worked as peddlers, selling linen and other similar types of goods. Before 1920, the area now known as Syria was actually part of Greater Syria, an area which included the four modern countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria itself. Most immigrants from the region were classified as "Syrian," even though they were not ethnic Syrian; some were even registered as Syrian Turks as Syria was under Ottoman rule for 400 years. This makes difficulties in trying to work out how many Syrians arrived in the early years.