Population
According to official estimates in 2008, the population of Lebanon was 3,971,941; the density of 388 residents / km². About 88% of the population lives in urban areas. There are no official censuses after 1932.
Main cities
The capital and main port is Beirut, which has a population (according to estimates for 2003) of 1,792,000. The two major ports and pipeline terminals, Tripoli (Tarabulus) and Sidon (Sayda) have respectively 212,900 and 149,000 residents.
Beirut
City and capital of Lebanon (in Arabic, Beyrut; formerly Beyrtus), located on the Mediterranean Sea. It was a renowned port and even in the 1970s an important cultural and financial center in the Middle East. Beirut was ravaged by civil war and the successive Syrian and Israeli occupations that took place between 1975 and 1991. Currently, the city is in the process of reconstruction, although it still has a long way to go to recover its past splendor.
Traditional Beirut sits on a ledge that projects slightly to the west over the Mediterranean and is bounded by the Lebanon Range to the east. Very poor neighborhoods spread around the historic core of the city, especially in the south, which link the city with the suburbs. The metropolitan area is barely 42 km2, although, generally, some places located outside the municipal term are associated with Beirut.
The city is basically divided into an eastern and a western area based on two hills: eastern Beirut or Ashrafiyah, associated with Christian Lebanese, and western Beirut or Musaytibah, associated with Sunni Muslims. The southern part of the city is currently inhabited by Palestinian and Lebanese Shiites. This combination of ethnic groups and their spatial distribution have contributed to the development of violence, in Lebanon in general, and in Beirut in particular.
Baalbek
A city in eastern Lebanon (ancient Heliopolis, “City of the Sun”), situated between the Litani and Asi rivers. Its name, which means city of Baal, is derived from its ancient association with the cult of Baal, a local solar deity that the ancient Greeks identified with their sun god Helios; for this reason Greece and Rome called it Heliopolis, ‘City of the Sun’. It was a prosperous and elegant city, and today it is famous for its imposing ruins of ancient temples.
The great Temple of the Sun, which measures approximately 49 m by 88 m, contains 58 Corinthian columns each 22.9 m high by 2.2 m in diameter. The entablature is 4.3 m high. The temple seems to have been built on an artificial earth mound, with large stones or megaliths, which support its mass. Three of these megaliths are located at the western end of the temple, and one of them is 19.5 m long and 4.3 m2.
The Temple of Jupiter, also of the Corinthian order, measured 69.2 m by 35.7 m and was surrounded by a peristyle of 42 smooth shank columns, with 10 fluted columns in the vestibule. The entablature was lavishly ornamented.
The Temple of Bacchus, located opposite the Temple of Jupiter, is better preserved. Another smaller one, the Temple of Venus, built on 6 granite columns appears attached to that of Jupiter. There are also traces of a later Christian basilica.
Although little is known of the early days of Baalbek, there is abundant evidence of its great antiquity: some masonry fragments are attributed Phoenician origin. The Roman Emperor Augustus turned the city into a Roman colony; the emperor of Spanish origin Trajan consulted a famous oracle there. The city was sacked by the Arabs in 748 AD, and later by the Mongol warlord Tamerlane in 1400. In 1759 a strong earthquake devastated the monuments that the city still conserved. Today, Baalbek is connected by train to Beirut, and to Damascus and Aleppo in Syria, and is the most important city in eastern Lebanon. In 1984, it was declared Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Population (1981), 50,000 residents.
Religion
Estimates, there are 17 recognized religious groups:
- Islam 3%
- Shiism 34%, Ismailis, Alawite
- Sunnism 3%
- Christianity 6%
- Maronite Catholic Church 19%
- Greek Orthodox Christianity 6%
- Armenian Apostolic Church 2%
- Melkite Catholic Church 6%
- Other Orthodox 0.5%
- Protestantism 5%
- Seventh-day Adventist Church
- Middle East University [1], 1939
- Other Christians 1.8%
- Seventh-day Adventist Church
- Druzos 1%
On January 19, 2015, Human Rights Watch presented 447 religious court judgments on divorce, property and child custody, and among the 243 divorce cases they were clearly discriminatory against women. [1]
Maronite church
Arab Christian community, settled in Lebanon and in communion with the Pope. Minor Maronite groups also exist in Cyprus, Palestine, Syria, and the United States. The Maronites number around 1,300,000 in the world. From the 7th to the 12th century, the Maronite community adhered to a heretical movement, Monotelism ; in the 12th century, the group reestablished its communion with the Western Church.
Its government is autonomously led by a patriarch, who is called the Patriarch of Antioch and is headquartered in Lebanon. Its liturgy is based on the Antioch rite, although it has some elements of the Latin rite; the language of the liturgy is Syrian. According to the Eastern Code of Canon Law (1957), celibacy is not part of the prescriptive laws for the Maronite cleric. It is regulated in accordance with the particular laws of the region or country where the Maronite community is located.
Idiom
The Arabic language is the official language of Lebanon, a country located in Asia according to ESTATELEARNING. For official and commercial uses, both English and French are widely used ; the Armenian ethnic minority speaks the Armenian language.
