Syria (region) Gouraud, in breach of the conditions of the mandate, subdivided the French Mandate of Syria into six states. They were the states of Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawite State (1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day Hatay in Turkey), and Greater Lebanon (1920) which later became the modern country of Lebanon. The region has sites that are significant to Abrahamic religions: Syria (region) The region of Syria (, Hieroglyphic Luwian: "Sura/i"; ; in modern literature called "Greater Syria", "Syria-Palestine", or the Levant) is an area located east of the Mediterranean sea. Throughout history, the region has
Wildlife of Syria south and Iraq to the east. The topography consists of a narrow coastal plain in the west which rises up to the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range which runs parallel with the coast. South of this is the Homs Gap, beyond which are Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains which separate Syria from Lebanon. Further east is a large area of steppe or Badia in the centre of the country. This is divided by the River Euphrates, on which a dam was built in 1973 creating a reservoir, Lake Assad, which is the largest lake in Syria. In the east and