At its height around 2,000 years ago, Apamea may have had as many as 500,000 people living there - which would have made it one of the biggest cities on Earth at the time. Its position in a fertile river valley made it wealthy, and trade routes from across the region passed through it.
The main street - called the Cardo Maximus - is 37 metres wide and nearly 2 kilometres long. That is wider than a four-lane motorway and almost as long as 20 football pitches end to end. The columns that line it have a distinctive spiral decoration carved into them, which is unusual among Roman colonnades and gives Apamea a unique look.
Apamea was also famous in the ancient world for its elephant stables. The kings who ruled the region before the Romans kept war elephants here, and ancient writers recorded that hundreds of elephants were trained and housed in the city. Archaeologists have found remains of huge stables that may have held them.
Today, Apamea is an open landscape of columns, scattered stone blocks and mosaic fragments. The site museum used to hold spectacular floor mosaics - detailed pictures made from tiny coloured tiles - showing hunting scenes, mythological stories and geometric patterns. These mosaics are some of the finest examples of ancient artistic craft ever found.