page_title: Aleppo
section_title: Municipality and international relations
hierarchical_section_title: Aleppo / Municipality and international relations
caption_attribution_description: English: Aleppo city hall
context_page_description: Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 4.6 million in 2010, Aleppo was the largest Syrian city before the Syrian Civil War; however, it is now the second-largest city in Syria, after the capital Damascus.
  Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it may have been inhabited since the sixth millennium BC. Excavations at Tell as-Sawda and Tell al-Ansari, just south of the old city of Aleppo, show that the area was occupied by Amorites by the latter part of the third millennium BC. That is also the time at which Aleppo is first mentioned in cuneiform tablets unearthed in Ebla and Mesopotamia, which speak of it as part of the Amorite state of Yamhad, and note its commercial and military importance. Such a long history is attributed to its strategic location as a trading center between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia.
  For centuries, Aleppo was the largest city in the Syrian region, and the Ottoman Empire's third-largest after Constantinople and Cairo.
context_section_description: The city of Aleppo is the capital of Aleppo Governorate and the centre of Mount Simeon District. Aleppo City Council is the governing body of the city. The first municipality council was formed in 1868. However, the governor being appointed directly by the president of the republic, has a supreme authority over the city and the entire governorate.
caption: Aleppo City Hall
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