Palestine]
time. If, on the other hand, only a portion of the country along the Hejaz railway line, south of Damascus, is to be united to Palestine a satisfactory solution is not easily found. If the line be drawn at the Yarmuk (Nahr el-Menadire) full justice is done to the claims of Daniascus. On the other hand, the Hauran now finds its principal commercial outlet into Palestine by the railway to Haifa, and so should be associated with Palestine rather than with Damascus. In that case the most distinctive line, physically, east of Jordan, skirts the southern and south-eastern base of Mount Hermon (Jebel esh-Sheikh), and then follows the Wadi Zabirani and the Nahr el-Awaj to the border village of El-Uijane, with its lake into which the Nahr el-Awaj flows.
The area of Syria, as defined above, has never been exactly measured, and estimates vary, according to the territories included, from 72,000 square miles (186,000 sq. km.) to 80,000 square miles (207,000 sq. km.) and 91,700 square miles (237,600 sq. km.) as a maximum. The area of southern Syria (Palestine) can be given more exactly. Western Palestine as far as Bir es-Seba has an area of 6,040 square miles (15,655 sq. km.); the country south of Bir es-Seba, as far as Akaba, 4,500 square miles (11,660 sq. km.); total for western Palestine, 10,540 square miles (27,315 sq. km.). The corresponding country east of Jordan and as far north as Hermon may be estimated to be of similar extent. The total area of southern Syria is accordingly about 21,009 square miles. This figure suggests that the 72,000 square miles suggested as the area for the whole of Syria is an over-estimate rather than an under-estimate.
The extreme length of Syria from about 37° 20' to 29° 50' north latitude is about 550 miles, and its width from the sea to the desert varies from 100 to 130 miles. From Rakka, on the Euphrates, to the sea is a distance of 180 miles.
Administrative Divisions.—Syria includes the three vilayets of Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut, and since
