Arwad

Arwad is a tiny rocky island roughly 2.4 kilometres off the Syrian coast near Tartus — barely 710 metres long and 515 metres wide, yet almost entirely covered by the fishing village of the same name. It is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited islands in the world: the Phoenicians used it as an impregnable maritime fortress, and Crusader knights later held it as one of their last footholds on the Levantine coast, long after the mainland had fallen. A now-dry underground freshwater spring once supplied the entire island population in antiquity, a feat of ancient water management that still intrigues archaeologists. Visitors arrive by small boat from Tartus to find a dense maze of narrow alleys, medieval stonework, and a sheltered eastern harbour where fishing boats still moor — a pace of life that has changed remarkably little over the centuries.