The Houla Region or Houla Plain ( ar, الحولة ''Al-Ḥūla'') is an area consisting of three villages in the

Homs Governorate Homs Governorate ( ar, مُحافظة حمص / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥimṣ'') is one of the fourteen governorates (provinces) of Syria. It is situated in central Syria. Its area differs in various sources, from to . It is thus geographical ...

of central

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 ...

, northwest of the city of

Homs Homs ( , , , ; ar, حِمْص / ALA-LC: ; Levantine Arabic: / ''Ḥomṣ'' ), known in pre-Islamic Syria as Emesa ( ; grc, Ἔμεσα, Émesa), is a city in western Syria and the capital of the Homs Governorate. It is Metres above sea level ...

. The biggest village in the Houla region had 20,041 inhabitants in 2004 and is called

Kafr Laha Kafr Laha ( ar, كفرلاها) is a town in the Homs Governorate north of Homs in northern Syria. In 2004 it had a population of 20,041 according to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Syria. Its inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslims. It i ...

. The second largest village,

Taldou Taldou ( ar, تلدو, Talldū, also spelled Tall Daww, Taldo, Tall Dhu or Taldao) is a town in the Houla region of northern Syria, north of Homs in the Homs Governorate. Nearby towns include Burj al-Qa'i to the east, Tallaf to the northeast, Ka ...

, had 15,727 inhabitants in 2004 and is located in the outskirts of Houla. The third village,

Tell Dahab Tell Dahab ( ar, تل ذهب, also spelled Tal Dhahab) is a village in central Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate, located northwest of Homs. Nearby localities include Taldou and Kafr Laha, Maryamin and al-Taybah al-Gharbiyah ...

had 12,055 inhabitants in 2004. The settlement is essentially a Turkmen

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word ''Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagree ...

town, where

Turkish language Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant sma ...

is widely spoken among its people. Houla is also surrounded by

Alawite 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 Isl ...

neighboring villages. Many of the inhabitants of the Houla village cluster are of Turkmen descent. Houla was described by 19th-century English scholar

Eli Smith Eli Smith (born September 13, 1801, in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (Whitney) Smith, and died January 11, 1857, in Beirut, Lebanon) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from Andov ...

as a low-lying tract of land situated at the eastern slope of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. The 13th-century Syrian 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 ...

visited al-Houla in 1226 during

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni ...

rule noting that the place belonged to

Jund Hims ''Jund Ḥimṣ'' ( ar, جند حمص, "military district of Homs") was one of the military districts of the caliphal province of Syria. Geography The capital of Jund Hims was Homs, from which the district received its name. Its principal urban ...

("military district of Homs"). On 29 April 2022, a water canal built by

FAO The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

was inaugurated in the region, which would bring water from Taldou dam to the agricultural lands there, after an 11-year hiatus due to the Syria civil war.

References

Bibliography

* * {{coord, 34, 53, 7, N, 36, 30, 42, E, region:SY, display=title Homs Governorate Plains of Syria Turkmen communities in Syria Turkish-speaking territories in Syria zh:侯拉镇