1959 al-Ghouri Map of the United Arab Republic and the Levant

An impressive large-format Arabic-language folding map of the Levant and the United Arab Republic, drawn in 1959 by geographer Ibrahim Hilmi al-Ghouri. It was published soon after the creation of the new state, a product of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Cold War.

A Closer Look

Coverage includes Syria, Palestine (without demarcating the State of Israel), Lebanon, and Transjordan. Elevation is demonstrated by color shading on both land and water, while symbols represent cities, highways and major roads, railroads, maritime routes, administrative boundaries, and waterways, as explained in the legend at bottom-right. Also at bottom-right is an inset map of the newly-created United Arab Republic, combining Egypt and Syria. Text above and below the map provides a brief description of the map and the areas covered, with the text at top focusing on Syria and that at bottom discussing the new United Arab Republic, including its population and area. The newness of the state is evidenced by a portion of the bottom line of text, where the number 19 (for 19,000 square kilometers) appears to have been pasted over the number 12.

The United Arab Republic

The United Arab Republic (UAR), founded in 1958, was a political union between Egypt (which included the occupied Gaza Strip) and Syria. It was a manifestation of pan-Arab sentiment that had become a dominant ideology in the wake of the creation of the State of Israel and during the decolonization of Arab countries by Western empires (Britain and France). The main catalyst for its creation was the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which Israel seized control of the Suez Canal with British and French support after it had been nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar. The wider context of the Cold War also contributed to the creation of the United Arab Republic, as Communist influence in Syria was growing and Syrian elites reluctantly agreed that a union with Egypt was the best means to prevent a Communist coup. Officially established on February 1, 1958, the new republic was quickly beset by disagreements between Nasser and Syrian elites, especially the Ba'ath Party, which he attempted to sideline. Although Nasser was extremely popular with the public throughout the Arab world, Syrians soon felt that their country was being taken over by outsiders. Thus, the union only lasted until 1961, when a coup d'état in Syria led to its secession. Egypt continued to be known as the UAR until 1971.

Publication History and Census

This map was created and drawn by Ibrahim Hilmi al-Ghouri, a prominent Syrian geographer, and was published and distributed by the Al-Iqtisad Library (مكتبة الإقتصاد(. It appears to be very similar to a map cataloged in the OCLC (882432085) among the holdings of the Library of Congress and the Ohio State University; though the creator, publisher, and content align, the size and scale of the two maps are somewhat different. This close match notwithstanding, we have been unable to locate any other examples of this map in institutional collections.