Lebanonلبنان

The coast was home to the Phoenician city-states — Byblos, Sidon and Tyre — whose traders spread an alphabetic script around the Mediterranean from about 1000 BCE. Persians, Alexander, the Seleucids and Rome followed; the Romans raised the great temples of Baalbek in the Beqaa. Arab armies arrived in the 630s. Mount Lebanon became a refuge: Maronite Christians in the north, Druze in the south, Shia Muslims in Jabal Amel and the Beqaa, while Sunni Muslims dominated the coastal towns.

Under the Ottomans (1516–1918) local emirs, first Ma'nid and then Shihabi, ran the mountain. Economic change and outside meddling set Maronites and Druze against each other, ending in the massacres of 1860, after which the Ottomans created an autonomous Mount Lebanon under a Christian governor. After the First World War France carved out Greater Lebanon in 1920, adding Beirut, Tripoli, the south and the Beqaa. Independence came in 1943 with the unwritten National Pact: Christians would not seek French protection, Muslims would not seek union with Syria, and offices would be shared.

Beirut boomed as a banking and cultural capital, but the formula froze a Christian advantage while demography shifted, and Palestinian armed groups arrived after 1970. Civil war broke out in 1975 and lasted fifteen years, drawing in Syria, Israel (which invaded in 1982 and occupied the south until 2000) and Iran-backed Hezbollah, founded in the early 1980s. The Taif Agreement of 1989 rebalanced power equally between Christians and Muslims and ended the war, leaving Syria dominant until its troops withdrew after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Hezbollah fought Israel in 2006 and in Syria's civil war after 2012. A decades-long debt-funded currency peg collapsed in 2019, wiping out savings, and on 4 August 2020 a stockpile of ammonium nitrate exploded in Beirut port, killing over 200 people. Hezbollah began firing on Israel in October 2023; the 2024 war killed several thousand people in Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah. A ceasefire held loosely until fighting resumed in March 2026 during the Iran war (check the current state).

Lebanon recognises 18 religious communities. Personal status — marriage, divorce, inheritance — is governed by each community's courts, so there is no civil marriage inside the country; couples marry abroad, often in Cyprus. Parliament seats are split equally between Christians and Muslims and subdivided by sect.

Maronite Catholics, an Eastern church in communion with Rome, have their patriarch at Bkerke and monasteries in the Qadisha Valley. Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Armenians are sizeable communities; Armenians settled in Bourj Hammoud after 1915. Sunni Muslims are concentrated in Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon; Shia Muslims in the south, the Beqaa and Beirut's southern suburbs; the Druze, a closed faith, in the Chouf and Mount Lebanon.

Refugees are part of the social fabric and a political flashpoint: Palestinians since 1948, most barred from many professions and from owning property, and Syrians since 2011. The diaspora — in Brazil, West Africa, the Gulf, Australia and North America — sends money home and often votes from abroad.

UNESCO lists Baalbek, Byblos, Tyre, the Umayyad town of Anjar, the Qadisha Valley with the Cedars of God, and the Rashid Karami International Fair in Tripoli designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Tyre and Baalbek lie in areas under the strongest warnings; strikes near Baalbek and Tyre drew UNESCO enhanced-protection measures in 2024 (check current status).

Beirut's layers show in a single walk downtown: Roman baths and a Byzantine law school site, Ottoman mosques, French mandate facades, civil-war shells like the Holiday Inn and the 'Egg' cinema, and the post-war rebuilt centre.

Many village houses with triple-arched facades and red-tile roofs, typical of 19th-century Mount Lebanon, have been lost to development, war and the port blast; restoration groups work on those in Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael.

Life after 2019 is organised around cash dollars, private generators and workarounds: households pay a state electricity bill, a neighbourhood generator subscription and often solar panels. Banks limit withdrawals from old deposits, so salaries are increasingly paid in 'fresh' dollars.

The weekend is Saturday–Sunday for most offices, with Friday prayers observed by many Muslims. Mezze culture — hummus, tabbouleh, kibbeh, grilled meats and arak — anchors long family lunches; man'oushe with za'atar is the breakfast staple. Language switches mid-sentence between Arabic, French and English.

Displacement from the south has repeatedly filled schools and relatives' homes in Beirut and the mountains. Politics is discussed openly, often along community lines, and army checkpoints are routine.