Syria Governorates

Syria is a country of two halves. A green band of coast, mountains and towns runs down the west, with Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo in a line along it, and east of that the land dries into steppe and desert that follows the Euphrates to the Iraqi border. Fourteen governorates cover it, few enough to learn in an evening.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: A conventional cut into five parts of the country
In the game: 14 governorates

Start

What you are looking at

The first tier of Syria: fourteen governorates, called muhafazat. Damascus is a governorate of its own, a small city-state inside Rural Damascus, which wraps round it. The rest are named for their main city, apart from Rural Damascus.

Syria has no official grouping above the governorates, so the start dialog uses the conventional cut to drill the map a piece at a time: Damascus and the south, the coast, the centre, the north west and the east. It is a way to learn the map, not a classification. The districts inside the governorates are their own quiz, Syria Districts.

How to place one

Anchor on the east. Deir ez-Zor, Ar-Raqqa and Al-Hasakah are the three large governorates along the Euphrates and the Turkish border, and they take up nearly half the map.
Walk down the western line. Aleppo and Idlib in the north, then Hama and Homs, then Rural Damascus, with Damascus tucked inside it.
Find the coast. Latakia and Tartus are the narrow pair on the Mediterranean, backed by the coastal mountains.
Finish in the south. Daraa, As-Suwayda and Quneitra run along the Jordanian border and the Golan Heights, with Quneitra one of the smallest.

Every governorate, by group

Damascus and the south5 governorates: As-Suwayda, Damascus, Daraa, Quneitra, Rural Damascus
Coast2 governorates: Latakia, Tartus
Centre2 governorates: Hama, Homs
North west2 governorates: Aleppo, Idlib
East3 governorates: Al-Hasakah, Ar-Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor

Worked examples

Homs

The biggest of them

Homs reaches from the Lebanese border in the west across the desert to the Iraqi border, and holds Palmyra. It is by far the largest governorate, and most of it is empty steppe.

Damascus

The one you can miss

Damascus is a city and a governorate in one, a small patch at the foot of Mount Qasioun that Rural Damascus surrounds on every side. It is small enough that the map gives it a tap area.