Claim: Syria includes Circassians.

Syria -LRB- -LSB- ˈsɪ.riə -RSB- سوريا -RRB- , officially known as the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia , bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west , Turkey to the north , Iraq to the east , Jordan to the south , and Israel to the southwest . Syria 's capital and largest city is Damascus .   A country of fertile plains , high mountains , and deserts , Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups , including Syrian Arabs , Greeks , Armenians , Assyrians , Kurds , Circassians , Mandeans and Turks . Religious groups include Sunnis , Christians , Alawites , Druze , Mandeans , Shiites , Salafis , and Yazidis . Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria .   In English , the name `` Syria '' was formerly synonymous with the Levant -LRB- known in Arabic as al-Sham -RRB- , while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires , including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC . Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world . In the Islamic era , Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt .   The modern Syrian state was established after the end of centuries of Ottoman control in World War I as a French mandate , and represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Arab Levant . It gained independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945 when Syria became a founding member of the United Nations , an act which legally ended the former French Mandate -- although French troops did not leave the country until April 1946 . The post-independence period was tumultuous , and a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949 -- 71 . In 1958 , Syria entered a brief union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic , which was terminated by the 1961 Syrian coup d'état . The Arab Republic of Syria came into being in late 1961 after December 1 constitutional referendum , and was increasingly unstable until the Ba'athist coup d'état , since which the Ba'ath Party has maintained its power . Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011 , effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens . Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad , who was in office from 1970 to 2000 .   Syria is a member of one international organization other than the United Nations , the Non-Aligned Movement ; it has become suspended from the Arab League on November 2011 and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation , and self-suspended from the Union for the Mediterranean . Since March 2011 , Syria has been embroiled in an uprising against Assad and the Ba'athist government as part of the Arab Spring , a crackdown that contributed to the Syrian Civil War and to Syria 's becoming one of the most violent countries in the world . Since the start of the war in 2011 , a number of self-proclaimed state entities have since emerged on Syrian territories , including the Syrian Opposition , the Federation of Northern Syria and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant .