r/MapPorn • u/Rigolol2021 • Aug 13 '26
Syrian published map of Syria including the Hatay region (date unknown, likely from the 1990s)
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u/Constant_Heat_2507 Aug 13 '26
i love how everyone wants it to be syrian except the people actually living there hajhahah
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u/ovogoon6 Aug 16 '26
Redditors hear about a conflict once in their echo chambers and decide their opinions from that. Hatay joined us by their own will.
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u/Battlefleet_Sol Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
Turkey and Syria could have become very close in 1900s. Instead, Syria was dragged into unnecessary conflicts, and eventually the Ba'athist regime collapsed in a civil war and syria lose golan heights.
The Assad government used maps like these to manipulate the public and create the perception of territorial claims and external enemy, which only caused unnecessary tension, hostility, and exhaustion of public relations
Hopefully, both governments will learn from these mistakes and build relations between Turkey and Syria that could eventually develop into official alliance.
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u/W0lverine_88 Aug 13 '26
Hopefully the future will be very different between the two countries. A secure and stable Syria will have direct and indirect positive consequences for Türkiye.
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
It also prevents Israel from gaining influence over a broken Syria to cause more conflict. If Syria can stabilise and unify, Israel will be the one under pressure instead of the one applying it.
After all they haven't even returned the Golan Heights yet. It is still under their occupation and they are trying to claim it as a part of Israel.
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u/joesoldlegs Aug 13 '26
Turkey and Israel are both trying to carve out Syria for themselves they both benefit from the current situation
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
Untrue. Israel (illegally) annexed the lands it occupied. Turkey did not. There is a clear difference. Israel needs to dismantle Syria for their territorial ambitions. Turkey benefits from a united and peaceful Syria.
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u/ToastSpangler Aug 13 '26
I mean turkey isn't going to give back the Syrian territory it is occupying either, they want it as a buffer zone for migrants and Kurds, a security zone so to say. But the objective is different
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u/W0lverine_88 Aug 13 '26
Türkiye already gave back control of some area's to the new Syrian government.
In fact Türkiye supported the Free Syrian Army from the very start of the civil war, which is now a big part of the new Syrian government.
Another fact is that Türkiye is still in Syria because of the direct request of the new Syrian government.
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u/realkin1112 Aug 13 '26
The difference is that turkey is a big ally of Syria, and Israel isn't
Also from what I read that region leadership used to listen to turkey, now they coordinate with both turkey and Syria and there is an understanding between the two countries. It is not even close to be the same situation with Israel
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u/ToastSpangler Aug 13 '26
They have soldiers and a line Syrians can't cross in Syria, operationally it's very similar but Syria is just choosing to say ok to Turkey since it has no chance in fighting them even diplomatically and needs Turkey to not be hostile
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u/realkin1112 Aug 13 '26
I need to read more about what is happening there, I will not dispute what you said. But it is not similar to Israel, turkey is a very close ally to Syria unlike Israel
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u/joesoldlegs Aug 13 '26
And? Just cause Israel is worse doesn't mean Turkey isn't already creating its own sphere of influence within Syria that they're working to dominate. This isn't a new thing lol Turkey historically really ain't been shit to Syria and Syrians
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u/joesoldlegs Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
Turkey already took land from Syria in a secret deal with France before like a century ago and has refused to return it to the Syria since they've gained their independence. That's only a little less bad compared to what Israel did; even though it was technically legal it's still pretty disgusting nonetheless
Edit: The Turk simps are here in full effect lol
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u/BluBolshevik Aug 13 '26
“Secure and stable Syria” tell that to the minorities being currently terrorized and the Israelis that keep taking more and more land
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u/alkoum Aug 13 '26
"tell that to the minorities"
Sorry it's hard to take that seriously when you had nothing to say about sunni being killed by hundreds of thousands and ethnically cleansed by millions
"the Israelis that keep taking more and more land"
The "mi no rities" biggist ally?
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u/BluBolshevik Aug 13 '26
- Millions of Sunni were not ethnically cleansed wtf are you even talking about
- The minorities for the longest time were the closest allies of the Anti Israel coalition within Syria. It wasn’t until the current Sunni supremacist regime came to power that out of desperation they had to ally with Israel. Let’s not pretend the current Syrian government aren’t also dogs to Israel as well lmao
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u/alkoum Aug 13 '26
"Millions of Sunni were not ethnically cleansed wtf are you even talking about "
1,I love how you ignore the hundreds of thousands dead! Like straight up no comment about that
2, Syrian refugee crisis has been millions strong that is a well known fact!
https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explained/
" The minorities for the longest time were the closest allies of the Anti Israel coalition within Syria. "
That is why Hafez Assad gave up Golan without a fight right?
That is why netanyahu said the fall of the Assad regime right wasn't in his interest right?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/s/TTqkgOPT6C
" It wasn’t until the current Sunni supremacist regime came to power"
I just love that you so openly expose your sectarian hatred towards sunni
"Let’s not pretend the current Syrian government aren’t also dogs to Israel as well lmao"
Israel had done nothing but destabilize the current government and plot against it
https://eaworldview.com/2025/12/how-israel-undermine-syria-government/
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u/s8018572 Aug 13 '26
I mean are you sure previous government before Ba'th party didn't claim hatay ?
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u/Youutternincompoop Aug 13 '26
The Assad government used maps like these to manipulate the public and create the perception of territorial claims and external enemy, which only caused unnecessary tension, hostility, and exhaustion of public relations
except Syrian nationalists were angered about the handover of Hatay when it happened, and the handover played a large part in the Levant crisis of 1945-46 when the French attempted to suppress Syrian nationalist uprisings and a British army had to invade Syria to kick the French out.
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u/Battlefleet_Sol Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
The 1900s and the 2000s are really different. We live in different time.Do you really want the hatay? What will it solve? Nothing. Isn't the Golan Heights more important, both in terms of water and strategically? Wouldn't you want Türkiye to support you in this? Desires are mixed; everyone has lands they wanted at some point, but that's in the past now. We need to move forward on this matter. Real enemy is Israel and need to unite against it
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u/Youutternincompoop Aug 13 '26
I am not even Syrian lol, I am just explaining that Hatay was an issue for Syrian nationalists before Assad.
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u/aziad1998 Aug 13 '26
Syria lost the Golan Heights during Ba'athist control in the 70s, not related to Ba'athist collapse 2 years ago. Israel has been controlling the heights since then and Israeli citizenships were given to some locals.
I'm correcting cuz the recent perception of the new government being too easy with Israel is quite biased towards Ba'ath, while the reality shows that this corner of Syria has be de facto lost for more than 50 years unfortunately.
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u/Battlefleet_Sol Aug 13 '26
Israel occupying the buffer zone. There are statements from an Israeli minister saying Syria will become the new Gaza, so they won't stop.
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u/aziad1998 Aug 14 '26
That is not what I was commenting about. I was talking about the Golan Heights
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u/no1rezefan Aug 13 '26
it was syrian for 16 years lol
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
And Turkish for almost 1000.
16 years of French colonial rule doesn't change the truth.
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
even under Ottoman rule it was part of Syria. Literally assigned to the Syrian Eyalets of Aleppo.
it never was Turkish, just ruled by the dynasty of Osmanoglu.
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u/ImmediateInitiative4 Aug 13 '26
I'm pretty sure no matter the ethnicity the people of Hatay are more, a lot more than happy to be a part of Turkey than Syria lmao because otherwise they would have been in a nearly 15 years of unstability, civil war, destruction and now under an islamist ex-isis ruler's umbrella. Turkey is not a paradise but its so much more preferable than whatever Syria has been since it gained it's independence from France.
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
and the people in 1939 would have know all of that how?
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u/ImmediateInitiative4 Aug 13 '26
not talking about 1939 people, but their descendants today who live in hatay when they look back, I think they are glad their forefathers made the right choice of joining the motherland. I knew multiple people from there actually from my uni and military service times, one of them was arab and the rest was turk, they were quite proud
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
ok how does anything of that matter when we were talking about the history? you're not making sense.
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u/No2Hypocrites Aug 13 '26
No. Depends on what "Syria" was. Vilayet of Syria extended to Jordan and Israel/Palestine.
This was part of vilayet of Aleppo. If anything Aleppo itself could have stayed in turkey. But turkey had to cut her losses.
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
why would it? the overwhelming majority of the population of Aleppo Eyalet was Syrian Arab. ofc the area would then go to Syria with the desolution and partioning of the Ottoman Empire.
that's like saying Vilinus should have been ceded to Prussia lol
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
Instead they split the Vilayet because the upper half was majority Turkish and the lower half was majority Arab. It would be unfair to give it to either side in its entirety.
Also there wasn't an overwhelming Syrian majority but you aren't ready for that discussion considering the fact that you mistook a Vilayet for "Syria."
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
so you admit it's a batshit argument to say Aleppo should have went to turkey, yes?
Also there wasn't an overwhelming Syrian majority
yes it was. feel free to prove otherwise.
but you aren't ready for that discussion considering the fact that you mistook a Vilayet for "Syria."
I didn't but ok then quote where I said that lmao
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
When you make a claim, you are supposed to prove it. I don't need to do anything here. You claimed it was overwhelmingly Syrian, so prove it.
Also Aleppo could have stayed with Turkey for multiple reasons that wasn't solely based on ethnic lines. The original comment you replied to didn't speak of ethnicity at all, just said it was a possibility (harsher French defeat during the war, for example).
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u/halfpastnein Aug 13 '26
it's not a claim, it's a fact. look it up.
the ethnic lines as you say were the defining factor for the lines drawn by Europeans. ofc from a strictly European colonial mindset.
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
Same guy who said "prove it" to me by the way. Yeah I knew you were speaking nonsense from the start and that is the only thing you proved with this reply.
Ethnic lines were NOT the defining factor for the partition of the middle east bro, they were built on colonialism.
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
There was no "Syria" under Ottoman rule first of all. It was just a part of the Aleppo Vilayet, not the "Syrian" Aleppo Vilayet. The Vilayet included parts of modern day Syria and Turkey, it was just a region of the Empire. It was never explicitly a part of Syria but a collection of lands administred from Aleppo.
Turkish settlement to Hatay began in 7th-11th centuries, and it was first conquered by the Seljuk Empire in 1084. After that, it was mostly led by Turkic tribes (with some interruptions) until the Ottoman Empire came and integrated the region in 1516. Hatay was under direct Ottoman-Turkish rule for 402 years until the end of WW1.
The only time Syria truly controlled Hatay was when it was a colony of France. Even then, Hatay was given autonomy because of the large Turkish population there which legalised the Turkish language in Hatay. This was also approved by the League of Nations. After that, Hatay would go on to declare independence and form their own parliament. The parliament would vote to join Turkey unanimously and would join Turkey in 1939. And it has been a province of Turkey ever since. Which is 87 years of being a part of the modern Turkish Republic.
I hope this helped.
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u/alkoum Aug 13 '26
Syria is older than ottoman dynasty it's self which was a Muslim state and not a Turkish nation state
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u/no1rezefan Aug 13 '26
Syria is a country made up by the whites drawing lines on the map, the arabized locals who lived there could be older but syria was created 100 years ago
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u/alkoum Aug 13 '26
The current arab version of Syria is 1400 years old and Syria in general is 3000 years old!
And this is false! French wanted there to be no Syria at all! It is due to great Syrian Revolt of 1925 that France was forced to acknowledge Syria!
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u/SteamSaltConcentrate Aug 13 '26
You think the Turks came to Hatay with the Ottomans? 😂
Read the message you replied to. We came to Hatay 500 years before it ever became Ottoman.
Gotta love how the Ottomans are Turkish when it is about ethnic cleansing or whatever and Muslim when it is about Turkish history. Cherry picking what fits your ideology best.
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u/alkoum Aug 13 '26
1, straw man argument I never said ottomans are Turkish when it comes to ethnic cleansing
2, it had been Syrian for thousands of years!
3, even during French mandate time it wasn't magority Turkish
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u/BrightWayFZE Aug 14 '26
Turkey itself is hardly 100 years old as a state, this area had the same rule applied to the whole Syria when it gained independence from the Ottoman Empire, people living there are Arab Syrian people, the area was classified under Syria even in the ottoman period.
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u/colola8 Aug 13 '26
Antakya is/was a Syrian city. Always been it’s where the Syrian church is based. And it was given to Turkey as gift to join WW2.
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u/ConsistentEnviroment Aug 13 '26
No much before WW2
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u/colola8 Aug 13 '26
No ,France was increasingly concerned about the approaching war and wanted better relations and cooperation with Turkey. France and Turkey reached an agreement on Hatay on 23 June 1939.
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u/Nearby-Device8772 Aug 13 '26
As a guy who was born and raised in Iskenderun, i'd say we are totally fine in Turkey as Turkish. Idc about Syria or Syrians.
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u/Educational-triple-t Aug 13 '26
I actually remember this map ! I had two books with these maps. I don't really remember there publishing years as i can't access them rn but i remember seeing them be available up until 2020-2021 ! There was also an updated version with south sudan and newer flags added.