A-Thawra (Tabaqa)

This is a new city that rose up out of the sand.It was inaugurated by President Hafez al-Assad in 1973. Al-Thawra, ‘The Revolution’, is the capital of the area of the Euphrates dam. Here, when people talk of ‘the dam’, they do not only mean the huge structure that holds back the river (4500 meters long, 60 meters high, 512 meters wide at the base, 41 million cubic meters of rock earth and clay), but they also mean the Al-Assad lake (80km long, with 12 billion cubic meters of water, and a hydroelectric power-station, as well as the 640.000 hectares of agricultural land now brought under cultivation).