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Ghuta
33°30′00″N 36°25′15″E / 33.50000°N 36.42083°E Ghouta (Arabic: غُوطَةُ دِمَشْقَ / ALA-LC: Ḡūṭat Dimašq) is a countryside area in southwestern Syria that surrounds the city of Damascus along its eastern and southern rim.
Ghouta is an Arabic term (ghuta) for 'garden'.
The Ghouta is an oasis formed by the Barada River, as its waters flow east of Mount Qasioun, and its seven tributaries. It surrounds the city of Damascus. To the east and south of the Ghouta lies the Marj plain, which forms a narrow belt of fields, and south of that lies the Hauran plain. The Barada River Valley borders the Ghouta to the northeast. The area north of the Ghouta is less fertile and eventually desolate hill country. To the west of the region is the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
The Ghouta is historically the most celebrated 'green zone' (a verdant, fertile area around an urban center) in the Levant, according to the historian Beshara Doumani. He also notes that its fame in this regard persists, despite the significant loss of its planted areas to the development of suburban sprawl, extensive highways, and the effects of the Syrian Civil War. It was historically characterized by farming villages, vast gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which stretched up to 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) from the limits of the Old City of Damascus. The lands of the Ghouta were fed by irrigation. These factors distinguished it from the rain-dependent, mainly grain-growing Marj.
The size of the Ghouta has varied considerably at different times and according to different surveys and estimates. In the 20th century, the Syrian journalist Muhammad Kurd Ali approximated that it spanned an area 20 by 10 kilometers (12.4 mi × 6.2 mi), which is equal to 19,912 hectares, while a 2000 a survey reported that the region spanned 19,000 hectares.
The Jerusalemite geographer, al-Muqaddasi (d. 991), mentions the Ghouta as being one of the six rural territories belonging to Jund Dimashq (district of Damascus).
Since ancient times, canals dug by Damascenes provided irrigation of land on either side of the Barada, increasing the size of the Ghouta to the south and east of the city. Separating the city from the dry grasslands bordering the Syrian Desert, the Ghouta has historically provided its inhabitants with a variety of cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
Throughout much of the 19th century, most of the Ghouta farmlands were held by middle-class, small-scale landholders, who the historian James Reilly terms as "gentleman farmers". This type of land tenure was enabled by "the intensive and commercial nature of irrigated agriculture", according to Doumani. These farmers, part of whom were tenants and the other part possessors of usufruct rights, did not cultivate the lands themselves, but hired laborers with the considerable revenues they derived from their small plots.
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Ghuta
33°30′00″N 36°25′15″E / 33.50000°N 36.42083°E Ghouta (Arabic: غُوطَةُ دِمَشْقَ / ALA-LC: Ḡūṭat Dimašq) is a countryside area in southwestern Syria that surrounds the city of Damascus along its eastern and southern rim.
Ghouta is an Arabic term (ghuta) for 'garden'.
The Ghouta is an oasis formed by the Barada River, as its waters flow east of Mount Qasioun, and its seven tributaries. It surrounds the city of Damascus. To the east and south of the Ghouta lies the Marj plain, which forms a narrow belt of fields, and south of that lies the Hauran plain. The Barada River Valley borders the Ghouta to the northeast. The area north of the Ghouta is less fertile and eventually desolate hill country. To the west of the region is the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
The Ghouta is historically the most celebrated 'green zone' (a verdant, fertile area around an urban center) in the Levant, according to the historian Beshara Doumani. He also notes that its fame in this regard persists, despite the significant loss of its planted areas to the development of suburban sprawl, extensive highways, and the effects of the Syrian Civil War. It was historically characterized by farming villages, vast gardens, orchards, and vineyards, which stretched up to 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) from the limits of the Old City of Damascus. The lands of the Ghouta were fed by irrigation. These factors distinguished it from the rain-dependent, mainly grain-growing Marj.
The size of the Ghouta has varied considerably at different times and according to different surveys and estimates. In the 20th century, the Syrian journalist Muhammad Kurd Ali approximated that it spanned an area 20 by 10 kilometers (12.4 mi × 6.2 mi), which is equal to 19,912 hectares, while a 2000 a survey reported that the region spanned 19,000 hectares.
The Jerusalemite geographer, al-Muqaddasi (d. 991), mentions the Ghouta as being one of the six rural territories belonging to Jund Dimashq (district of Damascus).
Since ancient times, canals dug by Damascenes provided irrigation of land on either side of the Barada, increasing the size of the Ghouta to the south and east of the city. Separating the city from the dry grasslands bordering the Syrian Desert, the Ghouta has historically provided its inhabitants with a variety of cereals, vegetables, and fruits.
Throughout much of the 19th century, most of the Ghouta farmlands were held by middle-class, small-scale landholders, who the historian James Reilly terms as "gentleman farmers". This type of land tenure was enabled by "the intensive and commercial nature of irrigated agriculture", according to Doumani. These farmers, part of whom were tenants and the other part possessors of usufruct rights, did not cultivate the lands themselves, but hired laborers with the considerable revenues they derived from their small plots.