HAURAN hôr’ ən (חַוְרָֽן; LXX Αὐρανίτις). A district SE of Mt. Hermon, E of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, and N of the Yarmuk River. It is about fifty m. square and about 2,000 ft. above sea level. It was called Bashan in OT times, Hauran in later centuries, Auranitis in the Greco-Roman period, and is Hauran again in modern times.

There are numerous signs of volcanic action in the area, and the many extinct volcanoes on the E and W sides of the plateau give evidence of extensive volcanic activity in prehistoric times. The fertility of the rich lava soil has made it a great grain-growing area, providing wheat for Damascus and Palestine. The district abounds in ruined cities dating back to the early Christian centuries, and everywhere there may be seen abandoned houses built entirely of black basalt. Hauran is almost treeless.

The name appears only in Ezekiel 47:16, 18, where it is mentioned as the ideal border of Canaan on the E. The name occurs also in Egyp. texts of the 19th dynasty and in ancient inscrs. of Assyria, but not much is known about the history of Hauran beyond the 1st cent. b.c. The tribe of Manasseh settled both N and S of the Yarmuk; but in later times there were comparatively few Israelites in the land. Solomon taxed the region, but it was seldom mastered by Israelite rulers. Alexander Jannaeus gained control of the W part, but the Nabateans repeatedly brought it under their sway. Herod the Great included the whole of the land in his kingdom; and when he died his son Philip ruled it as a separate tetrarchy (Luke 3:1), although it was not really Jewish. After Philip’s death Caligula bestowed it upon Herod Agrippa I, who ruled it until his death in a.d. 44, after which for nine years it was administered by the Romans. Claudius then gave it to Herod Agrippa II, and after his death in a.d. 106 Trajan added it to the Rom. province of Syria. Under the Romans Christianity made rapid progress, but in a.d. 632 the Moslem hordes from Arabia swept through the land and utterly destroyed the church.

Bibliography G. A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (13th ed. 1907), 609-638.