The northern part of the plain is known as Ard-el-Burajineh.

The plain is deficient in water,[117] yet is cultivated in olives and mulberries, and contains the largest olive grove in all Syria.

A little beyond its western edge is the famous pine forest[118] from which (according to some) Berytus derived its name.[119] The plain of Marathus is, next to Sharon, the most extensive in Phoenicia.

It stretches from Jebili (Gabala) on the north to Arka towards the south, a distance of about sixty miles, and has a width varying from two to ten miles.

The rock crops out from it in places and it is broken between Tortosa and Hammam by a line of low hills running parallel with the shore.[120] The principal streams which water it are the Nahr-el-Melk, or Badas, six miles south of Jebili, the Nahr Amrith, a strong running brook which empties itself into the sea a few miles south of Tortosa (Antaradus), the Nahr Kuble, which joins the Nahr Amrith near its mouth, and the Eleutherus or Nahr-el-Kabir, which reaches the sea a little north of Arka.