page_title: Latakia
section_title: Modern era
hierarchical_section_title: Latakia / History / Modern era
caption_attribution_description: English: A weiw of the Syrian city of Latakia in 1970. العربية: منظر لمدينة اللاذقية السورية في عام 1970.
context_page_description: Latakia is the principal port city of Syria, as well as the capital of the Latakia Governorate. Historically, it has also been known as Laodicea in Syria or Laodicea ad Mare. In addition to serving as a port, the city is a manufacturing center for surrounding agricultural towns and villages. According to the 2004 official census, the population of the city is 383,786, Its population greatly increased as a result of the ongoing Syrian Civil War due to the influx of refugees from rebel held areas. It is the 4th-largest city in Syria after Aleppo, Damascus and Homs, and it borders Tartus to the south, Hama to the east, and Idlib to the north while Cape Apostolos Andreas, the most north-eastern tip of Cyprus is about 68 miles away.
  Although the site has been inhabited since the 2nd millennium BC, the city was founded in the 4th century BC under the rule of the Seleucid empire. Latakia was subsequently ruled by the Romans, then the Ummayads and Abbasids in the 8th–10th centuries of the Christian era. Under their rule, the Byzantines frequently attacked the city, periodically recapturing it before losing it again to the Arabs, particularly the Fatimids.
context_section_description: All but a few classical buildings have been destroyed, often by earthquakes; those remaining include a Roman triumphal arch and Corinthian columns known as the Colonnade of Bacchus. However, important remains from the city at Roman and Hellenistic periods including full body statues, Roman funerary art, and column capitals that once belonged to the ancient city, are found in its national museum.
  An extensive port project was proposed in 1948, and construction work began on the Port of Latakia in 1950, aided by a US$6 million loan from Saudi Arabia. By 1951, the first stage of the construction was completed, and the port handled an increasing amount of Syria's overseas trade.
  In August 1957, 4,000 Egyptian troops landed in Latakia under orders from Gamal Abdel Nasser after Turkish troops massed along the border with Syria, accusing it of harboring Turkish Communists.
  A major highway linked Latakia with Aleppo and the Euphrates valley in 1968 and was supplemented by the completion of a railway line to Homs. The port became even more important after 1975, due to the troubled situation in Lebanon and the loss of Beirut and Tripoli as ports.
  In 1973, during the October War (Yom Kippur War), the naval Battle of Latakia between Israel and Syria was fought just offshore from Latakia. The battle was the first to be fought using missiles and ECM (electronic countermeasures).
  In 1987, the city hosted the tenth round of the Mediterranean Games, with the opening ceremony hosted by Hafez al-Assad in the Latakia Sports City, a sports complex designed specifically to host the games, with the Latakia Sports City Stadium serving as the main venue for the games.
  In 1994, the city's population reached 303,000, with that number significantly rising to 383,786 in 2004. Although population assessment in recent years have become difficult due to the ongoing civil war, the city's population is estimated to have rose drastically due to the influx of refugees from the cities of Aleppo, Idlib and other cities held by rebels and extremist terrorists which have been affected by the ongoing war.
caption: Latakia in 1970.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2010:06:16 15:20:02", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6868", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "601", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "404"}