Syria (Arabic: سوريا Sūriyā or سورية Sūriyah), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية ), is a country in Southwest Asia, borering Lebanon, the Mediterranean Sea and the island of Cyprus to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. The modern state of Syria was formerly a French mandate and attained independence in 1946, but can trace its roots to the fourth millennium BC. Its capital city, Damascus, was the seat of the Umayyad Empire and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Empire.