Suwayda

Suwayda is the administrative capital of the As-Suwayda Governorate in Syria's southwestern Hauran region and the principal center of the country's Druze community. The area was settled in Nabataean and Roman times, and remnants of ancient structures survive from late antiquity. Today the city functions as the cultural and civic heart of the Druze, an Arabic-speaking religious minority with a distinctive and partly esoteric faith tradition. Due to the ongoing instability in Syria, reliable on-the-ground visitor information is limited.