The Ghab Plain is a fertile depression lying mainly in the Al-Suqaylabiyah District in northwest Syria, near  Muhradah (35°15'N 36°35'E), around 25 km north-west of Hama. The valley was flooded for centuries by the waters of the Orontes River, which rendered it a swamp. The "Ghab project", beginning in the 1950s, drained the valley to make it habitable, arable land, providing an extra of irrigated farmland.