Dayr az-Zawr

Deir ez-Zor stands on the Euphrates where the river crosses the dry Syrian steppe. Ottoman records mention a small settlement here amid a sparsely inhabited stretch of the valley. Cultivated land followed the river and its canals, while pastoral tribes moved seasonally through the Jazira and the desert beyond. The town lay on the route between Aleppo and Baghdad, near older centres farther downstream at the Khabur confluence and al-Rahba.