Kafr Zita
| Kafr Zita كفر زيتا Kafr Zayta | |
|---|---|
| Town | |
  Kafr Zita | |
| Coordinates: 35°22′25″N 36°36′6″E / 35.37361°N 36.60167°ECoordinates: 35°22′25″N 36°36′6″E / 35.37361°N 36.60167°E | |
| Country |
 Syria |
| Governorate | Hama |
| District | Mhardeh |
| Subdistrict | Kafr Zita |
| Population (2004) | |
| • Total | 17,052 |
| Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
| • Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) |
Kafr Zita (Arabic: كفر زيتا, also spelled Kafr Zayta) is a town in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located 30 kilometers north of Hama. Nearby localities include Kafr Nabudah and al-Habit to the northwest, Khan Shaykhun to the northeast, Mork to the east, Suran to the southeast, al-Lataminah, Halfaya and Mhardeh to the south, Tremseh to the southwest and Kirnaz and Hayalin. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Kafr Zita had a population of 17,052 in the 2004 census. It is also the center of a nahiyah ("subdistrict"), part of the Mhardeh District, that consists of seven localities with a combined population of 39,032 in 2004.[1]
History
The ruins of a church dating to the Byzantine period in the 5th-century are located in Kafr Zita.[2]
In the late Ottoman era between the 18th-19th centuries, the residents of Kafr Zita, which at that time was one of the largest villages in the area north of the Orontes River, were regularly in arrears for tax payment and had to obtain financial assistance.[3]
During the period of the French Mandate in Syria, Kafr Zita, like many of the surrounding localities, was organized as a collective farming village.[4] In 1975 the nahiyahs ("subdistricts") of Kafr Zita and Mhardeh were joined together to form the mantiqah ("district") of Mhardeh, with the latter as capital.[5]
On 16 December 2012, during the Syrian uprising against the government of Bashar al-Assad that began in early 2011, government forces combating rebels bombed Kafr Zita, leaving three children dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).[6] On 20 December rebels claimed to have captured Kafr Zita and a string of other nearby towns during an offensive against government forces in the vicinity of Hama.[7]
Demographics
Kafr Zita's inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslim Arabs, although in the early 20th-century they, along with the inhabitants of nearby Suran, were still proud of their Mawali origins.[8] The Mawali were non-Arab Muslim nomadic tribes who dominated the desert regions of northern Syria for centuries before being forced out to the vicinity of Hama and Aleppo in the 18th-century by the Annizah, a Bedouin tribal confederation from the Najd region of the Arabian Peninsula.[9]
References
- ↑ General Census of Population and Housing 2004. Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Hama Governorate. (Arabic)
- ↑ Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de l'Orne. 63-71. (1945). p. 73. (French)
- ↑ Phillip, 1992, p. 274.
- ↑ Comité de l'Asie française, 1933, p. 132.
- ↑ Centre d'études et de recherches URBAMA (France), 1986, p. 463.
- ↑ Camp residents flee Syria warplanes: NGO. Agence France Presse. 2012-12-17.
- ↑ UN sees no prospect of end to Syria violence. Al-Jazeera English. 2012-12-20.
- ↑ Comité de l'Asie française, 1933, p. 131.
- ↑ Nelles Guide, 1999, p. 22.
Bibliography
- Comité de l'Asie française (1933). L'Asie française (in French). 33-34. Comité de l'Asie française.
- Nelles Guide (1999). Syria and Lebanon. Hunter Publishing, Inc. ISBN 3886181057.
- Phillip, Thomas (1992). The Syrian Land in the 18th and 19th Century: The Common and the Specific in the Historical Experience. F. Steiner. ISBN 3515056858.
- Centre d'études et de recherches URBAMA (France) (1986). Petites villes et villes moyennes dans le monde arabe (in French) 2. Université de Tours.
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