Aleppo is a city in Syria, serving as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. For centuries, Aleppo was the Syrian region's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third-largest. Aleppo is an ancient metropolis, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it may have been inhabited since the 6th millennium BC.
The city's significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, which passed through central Asia and Mesopotamia. It won the title of the "Islamic Capital of Culture 2006", and has had a wave of successful restorations of its historic landmarks.