Why Aleppo City? Not only because my city

It has been said that the natives of a place are the least who actually know about the same place they have been living in for almost all their lives. I have to say that I do believe this is, at least partially true. Our knowledge of Aleppo is mostly based on a collection of memories ad life experiences that will most likely reflect the true nature of the city. It get even worse for those who left Aleppo years ago and live outside and only visit from summer to summer only to stay for 2-3 weeks period…….

I will try in this post to shape a general description of the city –demographics point of view) - in the next post I will shed light on the current status of the health sector in Aleppo.

Aleppo governance has a population of a little more than 4 million, which is the largest in Syria (based on 2004 census). A little more than 50% are males, with a total number of families of 705000.

Aleppo consists of several “مناطق" -municipalities-” (FIGURE ONE)which include:

1. منطقة عين العرب

2. منطقة جرابلس

3. منطقة منبج

4. منطقة الباب

5. منطقة دير حافر

6. منطقة السفيرة

7. منطقة اعزاز

8. منطقة عفرين

9. منطقة اتارب

10. منطقة جبل سمعان

11. مدينة حلب


Aleppo city itself has a population of some 2.4 million (which means the rest 1.5 million live in the other municipalities). But as you all know, the total 4 million are frequent visitors of Aleppo City with good number of them depend on Aleppo Health System in case of sickness.


Important numbers to understand the composition of Aleppo City itself:

• Total number of families: 462000 families

• Percentage of population less than 15 years old: 40%

• Percentage of population between 15-65: 57%

• Percentage of population above 65: 3%

• Unemployment percentage: 7.43%

• Percentage of people with a regular paid job: 63.39%

• Percentage of people with a governmental job: 21.08%

• Median number of persons/family: 5.37

• Illiteracy percentage in people >15 years age: 17.29 %

(More than 20% of females >15 years old are illiterate)

• Percentage of population with higher education: 5.24 %

(College and University Education)

If you are really interested you can get more numbers on the official website of The Central Bureau of Statistical Tasks: http://www.cbssyr.org/


Looking at such numbers is important, especially if you are planning to start a “health sector project”. As we will see in the coming posts how to use such numbers in defining your brand values and the whole branding effort.

For me the most important conclusion from those numbers the huge need for medical services in Aleppo Area. You have around 2 million “baby boomers” if you want, within the next 5 10 years they will be flooding any health system providing services for adults. On the other hand, it has been reported that the annual population growth rate in Aleppo has recently dropped to 2.9% per year with projections for a further drop to 2.6% over the coming decade.

Other important aspect to look at is the current population density in Aleppo City, although I will cover this again when I discuss where to choose the place of your medical facility. Almost half of the 2.4 million people living in Aleppo are estimated to live in 22 informal settlements (IS) of different types and sizes. The city grew dramatically in the 1970s and early ’80s largely through migration from small towns and rural areas mostly in Eastern Syria. Those (IS) are in general highly dense areas and are usually under served areas when it comes to medical services. (Figure 2)  (GTZ website)




In my Next 2 posts I will discuss the current health system and available services in Aleppo.