As-Safira ( ar, السَّفِيْرَة /
ALA-LC
ALA-LC (American Library AssociationLibrary of Congress) is a set of standards for romanization, the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin script.
Applications
The system is used to represent bibliographic information by ...
: ''as-Safīrah'';
Aleppo dialect: ''Sfīre'') is a
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n city administratively belonging to the
Aleppo Governorate
Aleppo Governorate ( ar, محافظة حلب / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥalab'' / ) is one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. It is the most populous governorate in Syria with a population of more than 4,867,000 (2011 Est.), almost 23% of the ...
. It is the administrative center for the
as-Safira District
as-Safira District ( ar, منطقة السفيرة, manṭiqat as-Safīrah) is a district of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. Administrative centre is the city of as-Safira. At the 2004 census, the district had a population of 178,293.
...
. As Safīrah has an altitude of , and a population of 106,382 , making it the 11th largest city per geographical entity in Syria.
Name
Medieval geographer
Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known fo ...
spells the name ''Asfīrah''
[le Strange, 1890, p]
400
/ref> (), not ''as-Safira'' (), which indicates that the definite article in the modern spelling is a result of hypercorrection
In sociolinguistics, hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer who produces a hypercorrection generally believes through a mi ...
.
As-Safira was known in pre-Islamic times as Sipri.[Ball, Warwick (2006) "The desert edges" ''Syria: A Historical And Architectural Guide'' Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, Massachusetts, page 157, ] Historians[Notably Dossin and Lewy, see Sasson, Jack M. (1966]
"A Sketch of North Syrian Economic Relations in the Middle Bronze Age"
''Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient'' 9(3): pp. 161–181, page 169, note 2 have suggested that the name ''Sipri'' may have come from the Akkadian word ''siparru'' meaning "bronze", which might indicate that copper was mined and bronze was worked there.
History
Since ancient times the city has been the distribution point for salt gathered from the nearby Sabkhat al-Jabbul
Sabkhat al-Jabbūl or Mamlahat al-Jabbūl or Lake Jabbūl ( ar, سبخة الجبول) is a large, traditionally seasonal, saline lake and concurrent salt flats (sabkha) 30 km southeast of Aleppo, Syria, in the Bāb District of Aleppo Go ...
.
Climate
As-Safira has a cold semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...
(Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
: ''BSk'').
Notes
Bibliography
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Cities in Syria
Populated places in al-Safira District