Syria

Listed by UNESCO since 1986, Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, its old town famed for its medieval covered markets, the monumental Citadel, and the Great Mosque rebuilt in the 12th century after a devastating earthquake.

A UNESCO site since 1980, Bosra preserves one of the finest and best-preserved Roman theatres in the Middle East, carved into a rocky hillside and seating approximately 15,000 spectators, set within a city that was once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia.

A UNESCO site since 1979, Damascus claims to be the world's oldest continuously inhabited city, its Old City a dense layering of Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic monuments enclosed by ancient walls.

A UNESCO site since 2011, the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria preserve a dense landscape of approximately 700 abandoned villages built from locally quarried basalt stone, dating primarily from the 1st to 7th centuries CE and representing one of the most complete surviving examples of ancient rural settlement in the Mediterranean.

A UNESCO site since 2006, Crac des Chevaliers is the best-preserved and most architecturally significant crusader castle in the world, built by the Knights Hospitaller on a basalt plateau controlling the Homs Gap between the Syrian coast and the interior.

A UNESCO site since 1980, Palmyra was the most important oasis city on the ancient Silk Road, its colonnaded streets and the Temple of Bel standing as the finest expression of a Greco-Roman city built in the heart of the Syrian desert.