Latakia

Latakia lies on the Syrian Mediterranean coast, between the sea and a chain of wooded mountains. Founded in the Hellenistic age as Laodicea, it served the cities of the interior as a port for goods moving between Syria and the wider Mediterranean. Its harbour linked Aleppo, Hama and Homs with maritime trade, although the town's fortunes changed with the rulers and commercial routes of the region.

The Ottomans took Latakia in 1516 and attached it to their Syrian provincial administration. In the seventeenth century tobacco cultivation spread in the coastal hinterland; in the eighteenth century local silk also attracted European merchants as supplies from Iran were disrupted. Trade with Egypt carried tobacco, coffee and rice through the port. British interest grew sufficiently for a vice-consulate to be established in 1737, bringing merchants into closer contact with local producers and creditors.

Tobacco duties became a significant source of revenue. In 1761 thousands of dönüms in the coastal district were planted with this increasingly valuable tobacco crop, most of them around Latakia itself. By 1793 the Ottoman government appointed a separate tobacco customs superintendent at Latakia, reflecting the growing importance of its exports. The port's rise depended on the work of cultivators in the surrounding mountains as well as the merchants and ships gathered on its shore.