Al-Ansariyyah

Al-Anṣariyyah (or Jabal Ansāriyya, Jebel Ansariye, Djebel Ansariye, Ansariye Mountains, Ansariyah mountains Jabal an Nusayriyah, or Alaouite Mountains, Alawite Mountains (Jibal al-‘Alawiyin)  or Syrian coastal range (Silsilat al-Jibal al-Saheliyya)) is a mountain range in Syria. The mountains range runs in a north–south direction along the coast of Syria. The range is about  long. To the west of the mountain range is the plain along the coast, and on the west is the valley of the Orontes. (The Orontes runs through the Ghab Depression.) The tallest mountains in the range are in the north: there their average height is about , but in the south the average mountains are only  high. The harbour city Latakia is to the west of the mountain range's highest mountain, which is  high. Al-Ansariyyah is the only area of land in Syria which has thick forests. 

At the southern end of the mountain range is the plain (the Homs Gap) which separates it from Mount Lebanon, in the country of Lebanon. On the south end is Krak de Chevaliers, a castle of the Middle Ages. In Classical Antiquity, the fresh water that came from these mountains supplied the cities of Antioch, Seleucia Pieria, Apamea, and Laodicea. Laodicea (now Latakia) was famous for its wine (from vines grown in this region), and the Roman geographer Strabo wrote that most of the wine in Alexandria in Roman Egypt came from Laodicea. Latakia was famous in the more recent past for its tobacco production.

The mountain range is the homeland of the Alawites. In the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, the Order of Assassins lived in these mountains.

People often migrate from the mountains to the plain of the coast and to the valley of the Ghab Depression, for economic reasons.

 References 

Category:Mountain ranges of Asia
Category:Geography of Syria