Al-Zabadani or Az-Zabadani (Arabic: الزبداني, romanized: az-Zabadānī) is a city and popular hill station in southwestern Syria in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, close to the border with Lebanon.
It is bordered by two mountain ranges, Mount Senir to the west and Jabal Al Shaqif to the east, and in the middle of it is a green carpet that forms the Zabadani Plain.
The mild summer weather, along with scenic views, led the French colonial rulers to develop the city as a traditional summer resort and hill station, and has made the town a popular resort, both for tourists and for visitors from Syrian cities on the plains, especially nearby Damascus, and for tens of thousands of visitors from the Arabian peninsula.
As a result, town's population has seen no substantial growth in the past two decades, currently standing (as of January 2025) at about 25,000 (of whom 2,000 are recently returned displaced persons.
It is also strategically important to Iran because, since at least as late as June 2011, it served as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's logistical hub for supplying Hezbollah.
[12] On 26 April 2014, the rebels surrendered after intense fighting with government troops, losing their last stronghold along Lebanon's border,[13] only to regain control of the city months later.