Astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi captured from ISS Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Damascus is considered the oldest capital in the world, and is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80km inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680m above sea level, Damascus experiences a dry climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Damascus has a cool arid climate (BWk) in the Köppen-Geiger system, due to the rain shadow effect of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the prevailing ocean currents. Summers are prolonged, dry and hot with less humidity.
The local scenery on the ground is as follows.
Reference: Sultan Al Neyadi’s Tweet
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