With its mild, moist climate and encirclement by wooded green mountains and deep valleys, Kessab is a favoured vacation resort for Syrians, mainly from Aleppo and Latakia.

Located at a height ranging between 650 and 850 above sea level, in the middle of dense coniferous Mediterranean forest, the town is a summer destination for Syrian people and for foreign visitors.

Jebel Aqra -also known as Mount Casius- at the north, located in the Turkish side next to the borderline, is the highest peak of the Kessab region, with a height of 1709 meters.

The region of Kessab was part of the ancient civilization that spread from the Syrian coasts up to the Orontes River, six millennia ago.

After a period they moved uphill and settled in the area now called the town of Kessab, turning it to a centre of the whole region and the destination of new refugees.

But the eastern and northern areas of the region remained unsecured, because they were constantly vulnerable to attacks from neighboring Turkish villages.

On 5 July 1938, the Turkish Army entered the Sanjak of Alexandretta and Antioch, in an agreement with the French colonial authorities, and the region was renamed Hatay State.

In the early hours of 21 March 2014, Kessab and its surrounding villages saw a multi-pronged attack by forces opposed to the Syrian government.

Some Kessab village guards reported that the Turkish military withdrew from its positions along the border shortly before the fighters crossed from Turkey.

Journalist Amberin Zaman wrote that leaked tapes in which Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, is heard discussing ways to spark a war with Syria might vindicate Kilicdaroglu's claims.

[14][15] On 2 April, during a hearing before the House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and in response to a question by Congressman Schiff, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, said that Kessab "is an issue of huge concern".

[17] Also on 3 April, Ruben Melkonyan, deputy dean of the Oriental Studies department at Yerevan State University, said that the Armenian community of Kessab was unlikely to recover and that what had happened were "crimes that make a genocide".

[19] News agencies and local residents of Kessab reported that the town's Armenian Catholic and Evangelical churches had been ruined and burnt by the Islamist groups, along with the Misakyan Cultural Centre.

[25] After the fall of the Assad regime, the Kessab crossing between Syria and Turkey reopened on 11 December 2024, marking the first time since the onset of the civil war.

The number of Kessab visitors usually grows during summers especially in the month of August, when a lot of Armenians arrive in the mountainous town, to celebrate the feast of the Assumption of Mary.

[29] In the late 19th century, German orientalist and traveler Martin Hartmann noted Kessab as a settlement of 200 houses populated by Armenians.