Houla
Houla was described by 19th-century English scholar Eli Smith as a low-lying tract of land situated at the eastern slope of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. The 13th-century Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi visited al-Houla in 1226 during Ayyubid rule noting that the place belonged to Jund Hims ("military district of Homs").
The Houla massacre
The Houla massacre (Arabic: مجزرة الحولة) was a mass murder of civilians by Syrian government forces that took place on May 25, 2012, in the midst of the Syrian Civil War, in the town of Taldou, in the Houla Region. According to the United Nations, 108 people were killed, including 34 women and 49 children.
On 29 April 2022, a water canal built by FAO was inaugurated in the region, which would bring water from Taldou dam to the agricultural lands there, after an 11-year hiatus due to the Syria civil war.