Raqqa

Raqqa stands beside the Euphrates near the mouth of the Balikh. The Abbasids built the walled city of al-Rafiqa beside the older settlement, and Harun al-Rashid made the area his residence for part of his reign. Palaces, mosques and markets spread across the river plain, while potters became renowned for glazed ceramics. The massive brick walls of al-Rafiqa and the Baghdad Gate recall the city's former splendour.

Raqqa declined after the Mongol invasions and much of the old city was left in ruins. In the sixteenth century it reappeared in Ottoman records as a customs station and small riverside settlement. The citadel was partly restored in 1683 and housed a Janissary detachment; in the following decades the province became a centre of Ottoman efforts to settle tribal communities. The river continued to connect the surviving settlement with the towns of the Euphrates, even as its inhabited area remained far smaller than the Abbasid city.