Baniyas

Baniyas (Arabic: بانياس‎ Bāniyās) is a city in Tartous Governorate, northwestern Syria, located 55 km south of Latakia (ancient Laodicea) and 35 km north of Tartous (ancient Tortosa)

It is famous for its citrus fruit orchards and its export of wood. North of the city is an oil refinery, one of the largest in Syria, and a power station.

On a nearby hill stands the Crusader castle of Margat (Qalaat el-Marqab), a huge Knights Hospitaller fortress built with black basalt stone.

History

In Phoenician times, it was an important seaport. Some have identified it with the Hellenistic city of Leucas (from colonists from the island Lefkada) mentioned by Stephanus Byzantius. It was a colony of Aradus (Strabo, XVI, 753), and was placed by Stephanus Byzantius in the late Roman province of Phoenicia, though it belonged rather to the province of Syria. In Greek and Latin, it is known as Balanaea or Balanea.

Bishopric

The bishopric of Balanea was a suffragan of Apamea, the capital of the Roman province of Syria Secunda, as is attested in a 6th-century Notitiae Episcopatuum. When Justinian established a new civil province, Theodorias, with Laodicea as metropolis, Balanea was incorporated into it, but continued to depend ecclesiastically on Apamea, till it obtained the status of an exempt bishopric directly subject to the Patriarch of Antioch.