I.

Introduction

Beirut or Bayrūt (ancient Beyrtus), capital and largest city of Lebanon, located on the Mediterranean Sea. Once a famous port and as recently as the 1970s a banking and cultural centre for the Middle East, Beirut was devastated by civil war and successive Syrian and Israeli occupation between 1975 and 1991. Traditional Beirut exists on a peninsula which projects slightly west into the Mediterranean, and is contained by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains that rise to the east. Around the historic core of the city areas of poverty have spread, particularly to the south, linking the city with adjacent suburbs. The area of the city is roughly 42 sq km (26 sq mi), though some sites located outside the municipal boundary are commonly associated with Beirut. A fundamental division in the city corresponds to east and west. Two hills for the division, with East Beirut, or Ashrafiyah, associated with Christian Lebanese, and West Beirut, or Musaytibah, associated with Sunni Muslims. The southern portion of the city is now linked with Lebanese Shi'ites and Palestinians. It is this combination of ethnic groups, and their spatial distribution, that has contributed to the violence in Lebanon in general, and Beirut in particular. Population 1,792,000 (2003 estimate).