[1] Nearby localities include Tell al-Tut, Aqarib to the north, Suha and Uqayribat to the east and al-Mukharram to the south.

The town was purportedly the burial place of the 13th-century Bedouin tribal leader Fadl ibn Isa, who was killed during a dispute within his tribe, the Al Fadl of the Banu Tayy, which governed the tribes of the Syrian steppe throughout Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman rule.

[4] Around 1848, the deserted town of Salamiyah and the surrounding khirbas began to be resettled by Ismailis from Syria's coastal Jabal Ansariyah mountains.

As part of this movement, in 1876, Ismailis from al-Qadmus and the Khawabi valley in Jabal Ansariyah founded modern Barri, attracted to its fertile land, water sources and pleasant climate.

[3] As of 2009, the inhabitants of Barri economically depended on rainfed agriculture, mainly the cultivation of olives, grapevines, wheat and barley, and sheep raising, and public sector jobs.