The Aleppo Citadel is built atop a huge, partially artificial mound rising 50 m above the city. The current structure dates from the 13th century and had been extensively damaged by earthquakes, notably in 1822. Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the region, known to antiquity as Khalpe, to the Greeks as Beroea, and to the Turks as Halep, and it occupies a strategic trading point midway between the sea and the Euphrates.
