French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon in the context of "Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire"

Hatay Province (Turkish: Hatay ili, pronounced [ˈhataj]) is the southernmost province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is 5,524 km (2,133 sq mi), and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, along the eastern coast of the Levantine Sea. The province borders Syria to its south and east, the Turkish province of Adana to the northwest, Osmaniye to the north, and Gaziantep to the northeast. It is partially situated on the Cilician Plain, a large fertile plain along the Cilicia region. Its administrative capital is Antakya (ancient Antioch), making it one of the three Turkish provinces not named after its administrative capital or any settlement. The second-largest city is İskenderun (formerly Alexandretta). Sovereignty over most of the province was disputed with neighbouring Syria, which claimed that the province had a demographic Arab majority, and has separated from its territory in violation of the terms of the French Mandate for Syria that was established on the heels of World War I; however, the issue has remained largely dormant since the thawing of Syrian-Turkish relations in the 2000s.

The partition of the Ottoman Empire (30 October 1918 – 1 November 1922) was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French, and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural, and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.

The League of Nations mandate granted the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia (later Iraq) and the British Mandate for Palestine, later divided into Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946). The Ottoman Empire's possessions in the Arabian Peninsula became the Kingdom of Hejaz, which the Sultanate of Nejd (today Saudi Arabia) was allowed to annex, and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen. The Empire's possessions on the western shores of the Persian Gulf were variously annexed by Saudi Arabia (al-Ahsa and Qatif), or remained British protectorates (Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar) and became the Arab States of the Persian Gulf.

Liwa (Arabic: لواء, liwā’, "ensign" or "banner") has developed various meanings in Arabic:

• a banner, in all senses (flag, advertising banner, election publicity banner, etc.)
• a district; see also: banner (administrative division)
• a level of military unit with its own ensign, now used as the equivalent to brigade
• an officer commanding a number of liwa units, now equivalent to a major general

In Turkish, liva (لواء, livâ) was used interchangeably with sanjak to describe the secondary administrative divisions into which the provinces of the Ottoman Empire were divided. After the fall of the empire, the term was used in the Arab countries formerly under Ottoman rule. It was gradually replaced by other terms like qadaa and mintaqa and is now defunct. It is only used occasionally in Syria to refer to the Hatay Province, ceded by the French mandate of Syria to Turkey in 1939, when it was Liwa’ Iskenderun.

Armenian genocide survivors were Armenians in the Ottoman Empire who survived the Armenian genocide. After the end of World War I, many tried to return home in Western Armenia but most were prevented by the Turkish nationalist movement which considered Armenian survivors to be a mortal threat to the Turkish state. Thousands of Armenians who tried to return were killed.

Roughly half of the survivors fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East with the other half fleeing to Eastern Armenia which later became the First Republic of Armenia. A further wave of Armenian refugees was created by the Turkey's invasion of the new Armenian Republic, and another 100,000 Armenians were uprooted from their homes in Cilicia following the French withdrawal in 1920. Between 1922 and 1929, the Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria. Fearing renewed persecution, the last Armenian communities of Cilicia fled after France ceded the territory to Turkey in 1939.

The State of Syria (French: État de Syrie, Arabic: دولة سوريا Dawlat Sūriyā) was a French Mandate state created by decree of 5 December 1924, with effect from 1 January 1925, from the union of the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus. It was the successor of the Syrian Federation (1922–1924) which had been created by providing a central assembly for the State of Aleppo, the State of Damascus and the Alawite State. The Alawite State did not join the State of Syria.

The Syrian Arab Army is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. Up until the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian Arab Army existed as a land force branch of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, which dominated the military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the most senior posts in the armed forces, and had the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services. The Syrian Army originated in local military forces formed by the French after World War I, after France obtained a mandate over the region. It officially came into being in 1945, before Syria obtained full independence the following year and 2 years after official independence.

After 1946, it played a major role in Syria's governance, mounting six military coups: two in 1949, including the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the August 1949 coup by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, and one each in 1951, 1954, 1963, 1966, and 1970. It fought four wars with Israel (1948, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and 1982 Lebanon War) and one with Jordan ("Black September" in Jordan, 1970). An armored division was also deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91 during the Gulf War, but saw little action. From 1976 to 2005 it was the major pillar of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Internally, it played a major part in suppressing the 1979–82 Islamist uprising in Syria, and from 2011 to 2024 was heavily engaged in fighting the Syrian Civil War, the most violent and prolonged war the Syrian Army had taken part in since its establishment in the 1940s.

The Shebaa Farms, also spelled Sheba'a Farms (Arabic: مزارع شبعا, Mazāri' Šib‘ā; Hebrew: חוות שבעא Havot Sheba‘a), also known as Mount Dov (Hebrew: הר דב, romanized: Har Dov), is a strip of land on the Lebanese–Syrian border that is currently occupied by Israel. Lebanon claims the Shebaa Farms as its own territory, and Syria agrees with this position. Israel claims it is part of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory that it has occupied since 1967 and effectively annexed in 1981. This dispute plays a significant role in contemporary Israel–Lebanon relations.

The territory is named for the farms within it which were historically tended by the inhabitants of the Lebanese town of Shebaa. It is about 11 kilometres (7 mi) long and 2.5 kilometres (2 mi) wide. The French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon administration did not demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria, nor was this done later by Lebanese and Syrian governments. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that inhabitants paid taxes to the Lebanese government. From the early 1950s to Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War, Syria was the de facto ruling power. In 1978 Israel invaded and occupied Southern Lebanon. In 1981, the Golan Heights, including the Shebaa Farms, were annexed by Israel, a move not recognized by the international community. Israel considers it part of the Golan Heights and continues to hold it, along with the Golan, under military occupation.

The Lebanese people (Arabic: الشعب اللبناني / ALA-LC: ash-shaʻb al-Lubnānī, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [eʃˈʃæʕeb ellɪbˈneːne]) are the people inhabiting or originating from Lebanon. The term may also include those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state. The major religious groups among the Lebanese people within Lebanon are Shia Muslims (27%), Sunni Muslims (27%), Maronite Christians (21%), Greek Orthodox Christians (8%), Melkite Christians (5%), Druze (5%), Protestant Christians (1%). The largest contingent of Lebanese, however, comprise a diaspora in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Africa, which is predominantly Maronite Christian.

As the relative proportion of the various sects is politically sensitive, Lebanon has not collected official census data on ethnic background since 1932 under the French Mandate. It is therefore difficult to have an exact demographic analysis of Lebanese society.The largest concentration of people with Lebanese ancestry may be in Brazil, having an estimated population of 5.8 to 7 million. However, it may be an exaggeration given that an official survey conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed that less than 1 million Brazilians claimed any Middle-Eastern origin. The Lebanese have always traveled the world, many of them settling permanently within the last two centuries.