Al-Safsafah ( ar, الصفصافة) is a town in northwestern

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 ...

, administratively part of the

Tartus Governorate Tartus Governorate, also transliterated as Tartous Governorate, ( ar, مُحافظة طرطوس / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ṭarṭūs'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western Syria, bordering Latakia Governorate to the ...

, located southeast of

Tartus ) , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = Tartus corniche Port of Tartus • Tartus beach and boulevard Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa • Al-Assad Stadium&n ...

and 13 kilometers north of the border with Lebanon. Nearby localities include Ayn al-Zibdeh and Kafr Fo to the southeast, al-Tulay'i to the east, Buwaydet al-Suwayqat to the northeast, Beit al-Shaykh Yunes to the north, Ayn al-Zarqa to the northwest and

al-Hamidiyah Al-Hamidiyah ( ar, الحميدية, al-Hamidiyya, gr, Χαμιδιέ) is a town on the Syrian coast, about 3 km from the Lebanese border. The town was founded in a very short time on the direct orders of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamit ...

to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, al-Safsafah had a population of 6,011 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative center of the al-Safsafah ''

nahiyah A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' ("sub-district") which contained 19 localities with a collective population of 23,416 in 2004.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Tartus Governorate. The inhabitants are predominantly

Alawites The Alawis, Alawites ( ar, علوية ''Alawīyah''), or pejoratively Nusayris ( ar, نصيرية ''Nuṣayrīyah'') are an ethnoreligious group that lives primarily in Levant and follows Alawism, a sect of Islam that originated from Shia Isla ...

History

One of the principle families of the town are the Abbas family. They formerly served as '' aghawat'' ("local military leaders") during the Ottoman era. The al-Safsafah subdistrict was detached from the

Safita District Safita District ( ar-at, منطقة صافيتا, manṭiqat Ṣāfītā) is a district of the Tartus Governorate in northwestern Syria. Administrative centre is the city of Safita Safita ( ar, صَافِيتَا '; phn, 𐤎‬𐤐𐤕‬𐤄 ...

and transferred to the

Tartus District Tartus District ( ar-at, منطقة طرطوس, manṭiqat Ṭarṭūs) is a district of the Tartus Governorate in northwestern Syria. The administrative centre is the city of Tartus ) , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = ...

in 1970. During the presidency of

Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad ', , (, 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian statesman and military officer who served as President of Syria from taking power in 1971 until his death in 2000. He was also Prime Minister of Syria from 1970 to 1 ...

(1970-2000), al-Safsafah and the coastal subdistrict center of al-Hamidiyah competed for the role of capital in a newly planned ''

mantiqah Minṭaqah ( ; plural ''manāṭiq'' ) is a first-level administrative division in Saudi Arabia and Chad and for a second-level administrative division in several other Arab countries. It is often translated as ''region'' or ''district'', but the ...

'' ("district") consisting of the

Akkar Akkar District ( ar, قضاء عكار) is the only district in Akkar Governorate, Lebanon. It is coextensive with the governorate and covers an area of . The UNHCR estimated the population of the district to be 389,899 in 2015, including 106,935 ...

plain of Syria. Although no new district has yet been created, in 1994 a branch of the Agricultural Bank of Syria was opened in al-Safsafah, which is normally reserved for district capitals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Safsafah Populated places in Tartus District Towns in Syria Alawite communities in Syria