The Herodian kingdom was a client state of the Roman Republic, later Roman Empire, ruled from 37 to 4 BCE by Herod the Great, who was appointed "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate. When Herod died, the kingdom was divided among his sons into the Herodian tetrarchy.
The Herodian kingdom included the regions of Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, and Galilee, as well as several regions east of the Jordan River—Perea, Batanaea, Auranitis, and Trachonitis.
The Yarmuk River (Arabic: نهر اليرموك, romanized: Nahr al-Yarmūk, Hebrew: נְהַר הַיַּרְמוּךְ, romanized: Nəhar hayYarmūḵ; Greek: Ἱερομύκης, Hieromýkēs; Latin: Hieromyces or Heromicas; sometimes spelled Yarmouk) is the largest tributary of the Jordan River. It runs in Jordan, Syria and Israel, and drains much of the Hauran plateau. Its main tributaries are the wadis of 'Allan and Ruqqad from the north, Ehreir and Zeizun from the east. Although the Yarmuk is narrow and shallow throughout its course, at its mouth it is nearly as wide as the Jordan, measuring thirty feet in breadth and five in depth.
Bosra (Arabic: بُصْرَىٰ, romanized: Buṣrā), formerly Bostra (Greek: Βόστρα) and officially called Busra al-Sham (Arabic: بُصْرَىٰ ٱلشَّام, romanized: Buṣrā al-Shām), is a town in southern Syria, administratively belonging to the Daraa District of the Daraa Governorate and geographically part of the Hauran region.
Bosra is an ancient city mentioned in 14th century BC Egyptian sources. A key Nabatean city, it became the prosperous provincial capital of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea following the dissolution of the Nabatean kingdom. With the advent of Christianity Bostra flourished as a Metropolitan Archbishopric under the jurisdiction of Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. It also became a Latin Catholic titular see and the episcopal see of a Melkite Catholic Archeparchy.
Jund al-Urdunn (Arabic: جُـنْـد الْأُرْدُنّ, translation: "The military district of Jordan") was one of the five districts of Bilad al-Sham (Islamic Syria) during the early Islamic period. It was established under the Rashidun and its capital was Tiberias throughout its rule by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates. It encompassed southern Mount Lebanon, the Galilee, the southern Hauran, the Golan Heights, and most of the eastern Jordan Valley (especially in the north).
The Lajat (Arabic: اللجاة/ALA-LC: al-Lajāʾ), also spelled Lejat, Lajah, el-Leja or Laja, is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about 50 kilometers (31 mi) southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Hauran plain to the west and the foothills of Jabal al-Druze to the south. The average elevation is between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, with the highest volcanic cone being 1,159 meters above sea level. Receiving little annual rainfall, the Lajat is largely barren, though there are scattered patches of arable land in some of its depressions.
The region has been known by a number of names throughout its history, including "Argob" (Hebrew: ארגוב ’Argōḇ, sometimes vocalized as Argov) in the Hebrew Bible and "Trachonitis" (Greek: Τραχωνῖτις) by the Greeks, a name under which it is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3, Luke 3:1). Long inhabited by Arab groups, it saw development under the Romans, who built a road through the center of the region connecting it with the empire's province of Syria. The pagan cults that predominated in Trachonitis during the Roman and pre-Roman era persisted through much of the Byzantine era, until the 6th century when Christianity became dominant. During Byzantine rule, Trachonitis experienced a massive building boom with churches, homes, bathhouses and colonnades being constructed in numerous villages, whose inhabitants remained largely Arab.
Batanaea or Batanea was an area often mentioned between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE. It is often mixed with the biblical Bashan, the part of the Biblical Holy Land, northeast of the Jordan River, as its Latinized form.
Bashan was, in biblical context, the whole region east of the Jordan, above Gadara and Abila until the Jabal al-Druze, the old Hauran (Bashan) mountains.
Daraa (Arabic: دَرْعَا, romanized: Darʿā, Levantine Arabic: [ˈdarʕa]) is a city in southwestern Syria, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of the border with Jordan. It is the capital of Daraa Governorate in the Hauran region. Located 90 kilometres (56 mi) south of Damascus on the Damascus–Amman highway, it serves as a way station for travelers. Nearby localities include Umm al-Mayazen and Nasib to the southeast, al-Naimah to the east, Ataman to the north, al-Yaduda to the northwest and Ramtha, Jordan, to the southwest.
According to the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics, Daraa had a population of 97,969 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative center of a nahiya (subdistrict) which contained eight localities with a collective population of 146,481 in 2004. Its inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslims.