page_title: Damascus
section_title: Transportation
hierarchical_section_title: Damascus / Transportation
caption_attribution_description: English: Damascus, Syria: Hejaz railway station, starting point of the Hejaz Railway Slovenščina: Damask, Sirija: Hedžaška železniška postaja, začetna (ali končna) točka Hedžaške železnice.
context_page_description: Damascus; Arabic: دمشق‎, romanized: Dimašq, Syrian Arabic: is the capital of Syria; it is also the country's largest city, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the battle for the city. It is colloquially known in Syria as aš-Šām (الشام) and titled the "City of Jasmine" (مدينة الياسمين Madīnat al-Yāsmīn). Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. The city had an estimated population of 1,711,000 as of 2009.
  In south-western Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area of 2.7 million people (2004). Embedded on the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80 kilometres (50 mi) inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea level, Damascus experiences a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus.
  First settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad.
context_section_description: The main airport is Damascus International Airport, approximately 20 km (12 mi) away from the city, with connections to a few Middle Eastern cities. Before the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Airport had connectivity to many Asian, European, African, and, South American cities.
  Streets in Damascus are often narrow, especially in the older parts of the city, and speed bumps are widely used to limit the speed of vehicles.
  Public transport in Damascus depends extensively on minibuses. There are about one hundred lines that operate inside the city and some of them extend from the city center to nearby suburbs. There is no schedule for the lines, and due to the limited number of official bus stops, buses will usually stop wherever a passenger needs to get on or off. The number of buses serving the same line is relatively high, which minimizes the waiting time. Lines are not numbered, rather they are given captions mostly indicating the two end points and possibly an important station along the line.
  Served by Chemins de Fer Syriens, the former main railway station of Damascus was al-Hejaz railway station, about 1 km (⁵⁄₈ mi) west of the old city. The station is now defunct and the tracks have been removed, but there still is a ticket counter and a shuttle to Damacus Kadam station in the south of the city, which now functions as the main railway station.
  In 2008, the government announced a plan to construct a Damascus Metro with opening time for the green line scheduled for 2015. The green line will be an essential west–east axis for the future public transportation network, serving Moadamiyeh, Sumariyeh, Mezzeh, Damascus University, Hijaz, the Old City, Abbassiyeen and Qaboun Pullman bus station. A four-line metro network is expected be in operation by 2050.
caption: Al-Hejaz Station
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