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Duraykish (, also transliterated Dreikiche or Dreykish) is a city in western Syria, in the Tartus Governorate, at a distance of about east of Tartus. The name 'Dreikiche' derives from Latin and means "three caves". The town is famous for its mineral water springs located to the south of the city. The mineral water of the town is bottled and sold under the label 'Dreikiche'. Its inhabitants are mostly Alawites.
In 1970, together with Qardaha and al-Shaykh Badr, Duraykish became the first Alawite settlement to gain city status in Syria. Its local prominence, the residents' relatively high level of education due to the existence of a high school and teacher's school in the town, its active souk (bazaar), growing tourism, and some of the residents' connections with the top members of the government of the ruling Ba'ath Party at the time all contributed to its elevated official status.
In the mid-1970s, the Ministry of Industry constructed a mineral water processing facility and silk spinning mill in Duraykish. State investments during this period helped spur an annual average population growth of 4.2% between 1970 and 1981, outpacing prior periods and the regional average of 3.8%. The al-Maqla'a part of the city developed in the 1980s and became home to newcomers from the surrounding villages, nine of which were incorporated into Duraykish in 1983; people from the surrounding villages constituted 90% of al-Maqla'a's residents. According to Balanche, since the incorporation, city politics and planning have often been characterized by the struggle between the original urban dwellers and the rural newcomers. The steep slopes around much of Duraykish prevent the original settlement from expanding. This left the area which became al-Maqla'a, located at the junction of the road connections with Safita (to the south) and Tartus (to the east), as the focus of development. This areas hosts most of the city's newer commercial businesses.
By the 1980s, the tourism stemming from Duraykish's mineral water sources began to diminish and the city also became less favored by visitors, who preferred the nearby, more modernized summer resort towns of Mashta al-Helu and Wadi al-Uyun. The large government-owned hotel in the city was closed in 1987, while the private hotels and private home rentals were generally considered uncomfortable by visitors. Following demand by the city's inhabitants, the government inaugurated an Arab culture center in Duraykish. In contrast to the initial boom in the decade following its promotion as a city, growth in Duraykish had slowed and the city experienced negative net migration at least during the 1980s and 1990s. Balanche attributes this decline to the state's top-down model of development and management of tourism and silk-processing in the city, which he considers stifling to private enterprise there.
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