Southern Syria

Southern Syria (سوريا الجنوبية, Suriyya al-Janubiyya) is the southern part of the Syria region, roughly corresponding to the Southern Levant. Typically it refers chronologically and geographically to the southern part of Ottoman Syria provinces.

Throughout the Ottoman period, prior to World War I, the Levant was administered and viewed locally as one entity, divided into provinces. Southern Syria was thus including the Southern sub-provinces of Ottoman Syria administrative region, including by the end of 19th and early 20th century the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, the Sanjak of Nablus and Sanjak of Acre (under Beirut Vilayet from 1888 and previously under Syria Vilayet), and a short-lived Mutasarrifate of Karak (split as a new administrative unit from Syria Vilayet in 1894/5). In 1884, the governor of Damascus made a proposal to establish a new "Vilayet of Southern Syria", though nothing came out of this.

In early 20th century, the term "Southern Syria" could imply support for the Greater Syria nationalism associated with the kingdom promised to the Hashemite dynasty of the Hejaz by the British during World War I. After the war, the Hashemite prince Faisal attempted to establish such a Greater Syrian or pan-Mashriq state—a united kingdom that would comprise all of what eventually became Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, but he was stymied by conflicting promises made by the British to different parties (see Sykes–Picot Agreement), leading to the French creation of the mandate of Syria and Lebanon in 1920.

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