Finding locations

By now (2024), and for several years, much of the specifics of this post are outdated (Panoramino doesn't exist and Wikimapia seems to be a lot less used), but perhaps you'll see ways to transfer methods, if you notice anything useful.

Also, please notice: this is a layman's post. If you read it please don't skip the notes at the bottom. Also before you decide what to think of my writings: please read through my latest post (plead added 03/06/2014).

Intro:

This is a step by step guide to enable you to use original language place-names and Wikimapia to find locations of on-line material such as YouTube videos, or Flickr photos.
Below the method is used with a YouTube video from Syria.
(when I prepared this post, I didn't notice, the Google interface wasn't switched to English. My apologies).

And please keep in mind: this process involves a number of sources, that all are open to either mistakes or deliberate misinformation(see note 1). Therefore, unless the locations found are corroborated they can not be considered certain. Step 7 points to some of the ways to increase certainty, and the additional tools described further down can also help in this part of the process.

1: In YouTube; high-light the relevant text (in this case the title of the video) right click, and choose "search Google for.....".

2: When in Google search; choose "Translate". 

3: In the translated text; place the cursor over, what you believe to be the name of the place/city. The corresponding original language text will be highlighted.

You might have to work a little to isolate the right piece of text. Here - for some reason - a dash is high-lighted together with the place name. It didn't effect the search though.
Also, sometimes i seems that pieces of text, that the translator can't find meaning to, becomes meaningful if it is broken up with spaces.

4: Select and copy the corresponding word in the original language.

5: Paste the word into the search field in Wikimapia, and click the search button. A list of possible locations will be displayed (if any exists). In this case there was only one, but if - as more often - there are several possible locations, try to zoom out and place the cursor over the different names. You will se that a red dot shows the different positions.

6: Use your judgment to single out the most likely match, click it, and the map will be centered on the location. Syria turns out to be described quite detailed in the Wikimapia database.

7: If possible, zoom in and use characteristic objects to verify the location. Sometimes this can be supported by orientation determined by direction of sunlight, the street layout, landscape characteristics or any other distinctive elements.
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additional tools:

In the following I have shown a few other ways of seeking information about locations. But there will surely be many other possibilities, and some of them much smarter than what I have come up with, therefore please only take this as an inspiration.
... and any tips and smart tricks will be happily received as comments to this post.

- photo services:

The place identification can sometimes be cross referenced by mapped photos in photo services (Panoramio is sought used in this case).
No corroboration is found for this location, but inside cities this tool can sometimes help you to understand, what buildings are used for, or to check significant shapes of landmarks like minarets or churches.


- Google Earth:

Another way to acces the Panoramio server is through Google Earth. There selected Panoramio photos have tumb-nail-links (if 'photos' is activate). The same is the case with Google Maps. But Google Earth have more photos, and it also have a history slide, which sometimes can help corroborate a location - or can reveal additional information (I've used that for the post 'Hama Military Airport'). (to avoid redirect errors I'v deactivated the link, but find the post in my archive)

Click the year-number in lower left corner (arrow). The slide appears in the upper left corner (other arrow), with that you can choose from a varying number of aerials within an also varying time-span.

- Google search:

The original language place name can also be (re)entered in Google search. This can bring up related material (other videos, FaceBook pages etc.).

This can also be done with the entire video-title to search for the original video uploader.

- Wikipedia:

Wikipedia in the original language can also be used to search the place name. In this case this search offered only a short description of the village.

The Wikipedia page also links to a large list of on-line maps/aerial services (arrow). This makes it easy to check different services for the most useful material.

Also: if there appears to be no match for the place name, it might be due to different spellings. Both Google Translate and Wikipedia suggest alternative Arabic spellings/words. Using them might bring your search forward.

Using latin lettering:

If you have a name of a city/town/village in latin lettering (which will often give you no results in Wikimapia) this Directory of Cities, Towns, and Regions in Syria might help you with a possible location (recommended by @bigmo1965, (by 2026-01-02 the acconut is no longer active)).

Use other channels:

Having found a possible location; further evidence or even confirmation can sometimes be established through other videos from the same area. The post Syrian Channel Listings on Brown Moses Blog lists YouTube channels by the cities/areas they are linked to. This might enable you to find material related to the video you are investigating.

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* note 1: one issue to be aware of in particular, is that in some cases the same name is used for cities in several differrent regions (thanks to @bigmo1965 for the reminder (by 2026-01-02 the account is no longer active)).

Telling tailes

Please notice: this is a layman's post. If you read it please don't skip any notes.
Also: before you decide what to think of my writings: please read through my latest post (plead added 03/06/2014).

This is the second of two photos of this scene/situation. The other is in my previous post 'The mortar tails of Homs'. Both photos by Lens Young Homsi .

(wording edited on December 23, 2012. Plead added june 3, 2014).
Some of the material in my last post 'The mortar tails of Homs' brought C.J. Chivers, war correspondent at The New York Times, to bring up a particular aspect of dealing with photographic material from war zones.

In the blog-post 'Revolutionary Art: The Mortar Tail Booms of Homs' he shares some of his knowledge, of parties in wars, using photography to communicate their situation to the surrounding world. The main point of the post is to differentiate between photography used to document conditions through existing motives, and photography where the motives have been arranged to enable the photographer - the revolutionary artist so to speak - to deliver or enhance a certain message. As his title indicates, he finds, that the drawing-scene photo series, which makes up the major part of the post, belongs to this second category. He also add, that among photos of ordnance scrap, those are of the less usual kind. And that they work.

I have seen far too little to have an opinion of the photos being unusual, but I do agree, that they belong in the art category. At least in part. Actually, I was certain, that "tail" was also the way to spell "tale", and the idea was, through that, to let the title indicate, that an unknown amount of fiction was to be expected. That was a mistake on my part, so thanks to Chivers for bringing that to attention, and please keep in mind, that - to a varying degree - this might also apply, when looking at a few more photos, I wanted to share, but wasn't able to fit in to the last post:

A sculptural arrangement of ordnance fragements on a kitchen counter. Holding the orange: a tail fragment from a 240 mm mortar round. Photo by Lens Young Homsi.

Efforts to maintain a level of social and cultural activity - and an obvious concern for the children to be able to enjoy life. The vase: a 120 mm mortar round without fuse and - hopefully - emptied of explosives. Photo from Syrian Revolution Memory Project.

 A crater that - in my opinion - could be from a 160 mm mortar shell (like what left the goal posts in the top most photo). The small holes in the white wall in the background could be made by potentially lethal fragments, all from that same shell. Photo by Lens Young Homsi with slight adjustment by me.

This perforated shutter tells the story of high explosive fragmentation shells in a different way.
Photo from Syrian Revolution Memory Project.

Al Hamidyeh Main Street. September 15, 2012 (according to poster). Photo by Lens Young Homsi.

related posts on this blog:

- The mortar tails of Homs 

- Mortar position, Homs

- Syria: Local photo sources.
 
*note: to write about motivation and main points of someone else's writings as if I know is a mistake (note added 03/06/2014).

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note, 2025-10-27: I finally changed or corrected the title from "Telling tales" to "Telling tails". For a long time I've thought it to be the title that I'd given this post. Today however, I noticed it wasn't, so I changed it. Thinking back, I remember deciding against using "tails" in the title and using "tales" instead. As I remember it had to do with the mistake with regards to the title in my previous post that I've mentioned in the introduction to this post, but it seems clear that using "tails" better points to what I wanted to present to the readers (even if mortar tails aren't the only ordnance fragments in the photos. But if you haven't; see the previous post for more)

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The mortar tails of Homs

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Please notice: this is a layman's post. If you read it please don't skip the notes at the bottom. Also before you decide what to think of it: please read through my latest post (plead added 03/06/2014).



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all photo by Lens Young Homsi

(the original links are no longer working, so these are to copies uploaded by me)

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relevant posts:
weapons used on Homs

Mortar position, Homs

Local photo sources - Homs, Hama, Idlib, Damascus, Aleppo and more

* note (added 06/10/2012): I have to mention, that I intended (but failed) to have the title of this post indicate, that it has to be considered, that the photographer possibly have taken part in shaping some of these stories. Relevant in this context are 'Revolutionary Art: The Mortar Tail Booms of Homs' by C. J. Chivers and my latest post: 'Telling tales'.

Hama Military Airport

Please notice: this is a layman's post. If you read it please don't skip the notes during and at the bottom of the post. Also before you decide what to think of my writings: please read through my latest post (plead added 03/06/2014).

A Ilyiushin Il 76 cargo plane at Hama Airbase. Image source: video on cursethee's YouTube channel. Uploaded 01/09/2012.

(latest addition: October 4, 2012).

With a population of about half of that of Homs, with a relatively large airbase close by and with no natural barriers (like Rastan), it appears, that the Syrian government have been able to deploy enough forces in Hama, to maintain military control there. 

I get the impression, that this has made Hama crucial to the regimes efforts to hold on to control in the Central Western part of the country. This would also have increased the importance of Hama military airport. And it is from that understanding, that I have tried to use the Google Earth's history-slide to make an aerial study, to see, if any changes in activity on the air base could be detected.


Aerial study: 

In the following I have zoomed in on different parts of the airport. I have chosen to use the aerial from Februar 22th 2012 for this, both because the quality of the aerial of that day is relatively good, and because my study indicates, that a change in activities did happen around this time.

There are links to comparative material (aerials from other dates) in the texts below each of the letter-marked areas, and for an overview of the whole country (if needed), I have placed a screen-shot from Wikimapia at the bottom of this post. I have also compiled some of the relevant video-reports in the last part of the post.

An aerial from Google Earth of Hama Military Airport just South-West of Hama city. Rectangles marked A – F indicate the areas that I have zoomed in on below.

A:  activity in all three areas marked seems to be above what have been the norm in the previous images.
Left rectangle: looks like mostly vehicles.
Centre rectangle: here it looks like white tents have popped up, and I suspect they are for ammunition storage. In the latest aerials most of the tents have disappeared, but a number of earth-walls are visible.
Right: some jets are visible along with signs of general activity. It's hard to say anything solid about the number of jets on the basis of this material except that since February 2012 between 6 and 8 jets are visible where none were visible earlier (see previous link).
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B:  In this aerial 5 helicopters are visible. That number is about the same as what can be seen in the images taken at dates before this, but after this date, the number of visible helicopters in the marked area rises to between 12 and 14.

C:  The number of visible jets in this area seems to have been between 6 and 8 until just after this image. From March 2012 and in the following aerials the number have dropped to 1 or 2.

D:  This area had no visible air-crafts before February 2012, at that time the number of visible aricrafts rises to between 4 and 6 helicopters, and outside the marked area two more jets show up in the aerials of may and June.

E:  before February 2012: between 2 and 5 jets. After February the number seems to drop to between 3 and 0.

F:  in the larger rectangle (white) there was just one visible air-craft and no vehicles before February 2012, but In this February 22th aerial there are signs of general activity, mainly vehicles it seems. In the aerial from March 2012 a number of white objects become visible within the smaller (dark) rectangle. I have inserted the corresponding sections from the March and June aerials to the fare right. My guess is that these - like in aerial A - are tents for ammunition. If so the tents disappear again, and so does the visible activity.
When I prepared these aerials I missed that between 3 and 4 jets are visible at this end of the airport. It varies where they are placed. In this aerial there are 2 or 3 in the top right corner and one by the hangar in the lower right corner. In other aerials 2 or 3 jets are visible at the end of the runway, just outside (to the south of) this aerial. These jets also cease to be visible in the images taken after March (except maybe one that can be seen in the hangar in the top right corner).

Summing up the aerials: 

It should be obvious that this is a very sketchy study. The intervals between the aerials are fare to long to insure, that coincidental events doesn't get to play the role as the norm. Among such coincidental events could be jets or helicopters being outside their hangar temporarily.

 

That said, to me the jump in activities around February 2012 appears significant, and so does the rise in the number of visible helicopters.
The drop in the number of visible jets seems a little less convincing. Some are showing up at A and D while a more disappear in C, E and F. This could have to do with the way, the Eastern part of the airport seems to have been cleared of visible activity in general. And a  possible explanation for this clearing, could be fear of being targeted by missiles or RPGs, from cover of the buildings and trees less than 1 km to the East.
Should that be the case, then I can't help getting the thought, that it could be a consequence of the attack on Abu Ad Duhour air-base with an anti-tank missile back in March 2012.


Video-reported activities:

A Mil Mi-8/17 helicopter decending at Hama Airbase. Image source: video on cursethee's YouTube channel. Uploaded 04/09/2012.

'03 02 2012 Haman: a civilian airplane inside Hama military airport in + English subtitles‬', uploaded 08/03/2012.
10:54 min. video w/subtitles: ‪Ilyushin IL-76TD‬ cargo plane unloading and view of air port.

'(03-02-12) Hama | Military Airport Uses Civilian Planes to Move Shabiha, Bring in Weapons‬', uploaded 04/03/2012.
0:44 min. video: looks like parts of the (two) previous recordings.

'Civilian aircraft landing at the airport in Hama military 28-4-2012', uploaded 28/04/2012.
0:54 min. smaller cargo plane on run or taxi way.

'Hama | civilian aircraft landing at the airport in Hama military‬', uploaded 05/06/2012.
0:36 min. video: A ilyushin IL76 coming in low with landing gear extended,  via @Guardian_Mario . More video-reportings from Hama of Syrian Ilyushin IL76 cargo planes.

'Civilian aircraft in the military airport in Hama 10-6-2012‬', uploaded 17/06/2012.
1:49 min. video: a ‪Ilyushin IL-76TD‬ cargo plane taking off.

'FNN Syria Hama Hama Military Airport 6 8 2012', uploaded 07/08/2012.
1:39 min. video: smaller cargo/passenger plan on the ground.

'FNN Syria Hama A warplane has left the military airport 25 8 2012‬', uploaded 07/08/2012.
1:37 min. video: jet - possibly a MiG-21 - takes off.

'Hama air base reconnaissance', uploaded 01/09/2012.
2:57 min. video: Helicopter landing, taxing, ‪Ilyushin IL-76TD‬ cargo plane.

'FNN Syria Hama Movements in the Military Airport 1 9 2012‬', uploaded 02/09/2012.
4:09 min. video: Helicopter taxing, possibly some overlaps with previous and following vid.

'Hama Military Airport', ‬ uploaded 04/09/2012.
0:23 min. video: helicopter landing.

'Hama: Asadi warplanes flying over the town c 2', uploaded 04/09/2012
0:07 min. video: MiG-23 with landing gear extended.

'Hama: Asadi warplanes flying over the town c 1', uploaded 04/09/2012
0:09 min. video: MiG-21 coming towards and past the reporter.
 
'Iranian civilian plane at the military airport Hama', ‬ uploaded 23/01/2013.
0:18 min. video: A ilyushin IL76 with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps markings approaching Hama military ariport (location according to uploader).

Video list with recordings of IRGC cargo planes in Syria.

A ilyushin IL-76 with markings of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps approaching Hama military airport (location acc2 title). Image source: video on adamfree gondallah's YouTube channel. Uploaded 23/01/2013.

Lists of video-reports related to use of Hama military airport:

Syrian Ilyushin IL-76 cargo planes, video-reported from Hama military airport.

Recordings of rocket artillery claimed to be launched from Hama military airport.

More about use of the Ilyushin IL-76:

'The use of civil aircraft in the transfer of arms to Syria', uploaded 13/11/2012.
0:29 min. video: leaked recording from Damascus airport with at least 4 IL-76 planes. via @TaimSyria.

'Turkey seized Iranian weapon cargo on route to Syria‬', uploaded 23/03/2011.
2:15 min. video: Turkish news-clip about an Iranian Ilyushin Il 76 being stopped in Turkey with light weapons (said Turkish authorities, according to video description). 


* note: I've seen a few more videos with Ilyushin Il 76 heading to or taking off from Hama Military Airport, that I haven't been able to find. If anyone can link me to them (or other videos) it will be welcomed.
* note 2: this post is an extention of an update to the post 'Syrian Airforce Unleashed', linked-to further down too. 
* note 3: I have collected some material about the deployment of military forces against Hama in the post 'Attack on Hama'.
* note 4 (added 12/09/2012): it should be mentioned, that the date of and locations of the videos are not verified. In relation to this, I want to add, on my own account, that the footage showing buildings of the airbase seems to correspond with the aerials, and also, that if I manage to find more of the early videos of Ilyushins over Hama, I expect the dates of the recordings, added so fare, will be better substantiated. 

Airbases in Syria:

Screen-shot from Wikimapia. The markers are the airbases that are registered in Wikimapia. My apologies for not having managed to find room for all of the country..

Aviation journalist David Cenciotti has several Hama related posts on his The Aviationist blog, and he was the first, that I saw, who reported on the appearance of the Ilyushin cargo plane at Hama airbase. He also collected evidence, that an Iranian drone - the Pahpad - was operated from the airbase, and identified another cargo plane as well (links added 12/09/2012).

The latest on Twitter: search 'Hama Airport'. search 'Hama Airbase'

Related posts on this blog:
- Syrian Airforce Unleashed
- Syrian Airforce use of the L-39 Albatros
- Fuel air bombs? Evidence from Talbiseh 
- Helicopter attack on farm outside Daraa
- Air base missile attack
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- all comments and corrections are welcome - either as post-comments or @bjoernen_hj.