Talat Musa

Where is Talat Musa?

Talat Musa is part of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.

You will find it in: Syria.

Summit: 34.030° N, 36.483° E

The story behind it

Talat Musa stands in the Anti-Lebanon mountains, the long chain that separates Syria from Lebanon. The rock here is pale limestone, worn into ridges and hollows, and almost nothing grows near the top except low thorny bushes between the stones. Maps give the height a few metres apart from one another, because a wide, rounded summit is hard to measure exactly. In winter the snow lies deep, and when it melts in spring the water sinks into the limestone and comes out far below as springs, where villages grow apricots, walnuts and grapes. Shepherds still bring goats and sheep up to the high pastures in summer, following paths that are older than any road, and from the summit the view runs over brown, treeless hills towards the valleys of Syria on one side and Lebanon on the other.

Find it on the globe

Talat Musa is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.