Syria Reference Map

The Syria Reference map is the latest in a series of geographic reference products created by the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) cartography center during recent years. These detailed maps are produced to satisfy an internal intelligence interest but are also available to the rest of the U.S. government and the public.

The map is a 1:1,300,000-scale representation of Syria, western Iraq, Israel, Jordan, southeastern Turkey, and northern Saudi Arabia. The terrain is hypsometrically tinted to give viewers a better idea of elevation variation throughout the region than the monochromatic terrain would.

Many sources were used to create this map. The CIAMAP database and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Vector Smart Map Level 0 provided the foundation data for the map. Digital terrain elevation data from NGA was used for the terrain background image of the reference map. Other sources included the GEOnet Names Server; The Statesman's Yearbook; and U.S. government, commercial, and foreign sources.