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Aleppo (Halab)
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Aleppo (Halab) Guide

Aleppo is a city in northern Syria, capital of the Aleppo Governorate. The city has a population of around 1.9 million, making it the second largest city in Syria after Damascus. Aleppo is the oldest inhabited city in history. It knew human settlement since the eleventh millennium B.C. through the residential houses which were discovered in Al-Qaramel Hill. It was known to antiquity as Khalpe, Khalibon, to the Greeks as Beroea (Veroea), and to the Turks as Halep; during the French Mandate, Alep was used. It occupies a strategic trading point midway between the sea and the Euphrates; initially, it was built on a small group of hills in a wide fertile valley on both sides of the river Quweiq. The province or governorate extends around the city for over 16,000 km² and has around 3.7 million inhabitants.

The main role of the city was as a trading place, as it sat at the crossroads of two trade routes and mediated the trade from India, the Tigris and Euphrates regions and the route coming from Damascus in the South, which traced the base of the mountains rather than the rugged seacoast. Although trade was often directed away from the city for political reasons, it continued to thrive until the Europeans began to use the Cape route to India and later to utilise the route through Egypt to the Red Sea. Since then the city has declined and its chief exports now are the agricultural products of the surrounding region, mainly wheat and cotton, pistachios, olives and sheep.

The name Halab is of obscure origins. Some proposed that Halab means the metals of iron or copper in Amorite languages since it was a major source of these metals in antiquity. Halaba in Aramaic means white, referring to the color of soil and marble abundant in the area. Another proposed etymology is that the name Halab means "gave out milk," coming from the ancient tradition that Abraham gave milk to travelers as they moved throughout the region. The colour of his cows was ashen (Arab. shaheb), therefore the city is also called "Halab ash-Shahba'" (he milked the ash-coloured).
Sights and Things to do in Aleppo (Halab):
  • Ottoman caravanserais
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