Houla

The Houla Region or Houla Plain (Arabic: الحولة Al-Ḥūla; Turkish: Hule) is an area consisting of three towns in the Homs Governorate of central Syria, It is a fertile agricultural plain situated between the Homs and Hama governorates, west of the Orontes River Valley and east of Jabal al-Helou. The region had a population of approximately 123,000 inhabitants according to the 2004 census The biggest town in the Houla region is called Kafr Laha had 20,041 inhabitants in 2004. The second largest town, Taldou, had 15,727 inhabitants in 2004 and is located in the outskirts of Houla. The third town, Tell Dahab had 12,055 inhabitants in 2004. The settlement is a predominantly Turkmen Sunni Muslim where Turkish language is widely spoken among its inhabitants. Houla is also surrounded by Alawite neighboring villages. Many of the inhabitants of the Houla cluster are of Turkmen descent. Houla was described by 19th-century English scholar Eli Smith as a low-lying tract of land situated at the eastern slope of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. The 13th-century Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Houla in 1226 during Ayyubid rule noting that the place belonged to Jund Hims ("military district of Homs").