The Ghab Plain (Arabic: سَهْلُ ٱلْغَابِ, romanized: Sahl al-Ġāb, literally: Forest Plain) is a fertile depression lying mainly in the Al-Suqaylabiyah District in northwest Syria. The Orontes River, flowing north, enters the Plain near Muhradah, around 25 km north-west of Hama.[1][2]
The valley was flooded for centuries by the waters of the Orontes River, which rendered it a swamp.[3][4] The "Ghab project", beginning in the 1950s, drained the valley to make it habitable, arable land,[5] providing an extra 41,000 hectares (160 sq mi) of irrigated farmland.[6]
The valley separates the al-Ansariyah mountains in the west from the Zawiyah mountain range and the plateau region to the east.[1] It is 63 kilometres (39 mi) long and 12.1 kilometres (7.5 mi) wide.[3]
- ^ a b Federal Research Division, 2004, p. 74.
- ^ Topography and Hydrology Map of the Orontes valley Archived 2017-04-13 at the Wayback Machine water-security.org
- ^ a b Sofer, 1999, p. 205.
- ^ South, Coleman. Syria. Tarrytown, N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2006. Print.
- ^ de Miranda, 2007, p. 267.
- ^ Salman, 2009, p. 28.