BEIRUT

Arabic Bayrut, French Beyrouth, capital, chief port, and largest city of Lebanon. It occupies a metropolitan area of approximately 26 square miles (67 square kilometres) on the Mediterranean coast, at the foot of the Lebanon Mountains. Beirut is a city of baffling contradictions whose character blends the sophisticated and cosmopolitan with the provincial and parochial. Before 1975, Beirut was widely considered the most thoroughly Westernized city in the Arab Middle East; since then, however, 15 years of civil war have ravaged most parts of the city and eroded much of the lustre that had formerly concealed the Arab-as distinct from the Levantine-side of its character. Despite the sectarian and ideological passions unleashed by the civil war, Beirut retains its basically liberal and tolerant way of life, albeit in changed circumstances. Arabic Bayrut, French Beyrouth capital, chief port, and largest city of Lebanon. It lies along the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of the Lebanon Mountains. In the decades after World War II, Beirut became the hub of the economic and cultural life of the Middle East. During that time it was the chief financial, commercial, and transit centre for the Arab countries of the eastern Mediterranean, but its character changed dramatically during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90) as a result of sectarian warfare and foreign invasions. Beirut is built on two hills, Al-Ashrafiyah (in East Beirut) and Al-Musaytibah (West Beirut), which extend into the sea as a roughly triangular peninsula. A narrow coastal plain (As-Sahil) runs north-south in the adjacent hinterland. The climate is Mediterranean, with hot, humid summers and a short rainy season in winter. Beirut first gained prominence under Roman rule in the 1st century BC. After many vicissitudes under Muslim Arabs, Christian crusaders, and the Ottoman Turks, it became the capital of the new state of Lebanon (under French mandate) in 1920 and the capital of a sovereign and independent Lebanon in 1941. Between 1952 and 1975 Beirut was an established banking centre for Arab wealth-largely invested in construction, commerce, and industry (food processing, textiles and shoes, and publishing)-and the city's economy flourished. International banking and business firms often based their Middle Eastern operations there, and the port's free zone served as a leading regional entrept. Beirut was also a major centre for Arab Middle Eastern and Western tourism. By the 1950s few traces of the old city remained because of haphazard development, and those scattered remains were largely destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War. Downtown Beirut (the old city) remained in ruins in the early 1990s-a squatter-occupied belt between East and West Beirut in which some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place. East Beirut emerged from the civil war with a monolithically Christian character, dominated by Christian militia, while West Beirut remained predominately Muslim, with Syrian support. The movement of Palestinian refugees from 1948, in and out of camps or urban enclaves at the edge of the city, compounded the divided nature of Beirut. Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982-83 further compounded the destruction, which only ended in 1990 with the cessation of the civil war. The city's universities, notably the American University of Beirut (1866) and Beirut Arab University (1960), have traditionally enjoyed fine reputations. Two principal highways link Beirut with points north and south along the coastline and with points east via Al-Biqa' (Bekaa Valley) to Damascus. Rail lines connect with points north, east, and south. Beirut International Airport, located in the southern suburb of Khaldah, handles passenger and freight traffic, as does the port. Pop. (1990 est.) city, 1,910,000. Additional reading Sad Chehabe ed-Dine, Gographie humaine de Beyrouth (1960), though outdated, remains the only study that surveys the human geography of Beirut and accounts for its growth patterns. Charles W. Churchill et al., The City of Beirut (1954), is a descriptive socioeconomic survey that provides detailed information on household composition, education, mobility, occupations, housing, income saving, and expenditure, today of historical value. Comprehensive Plan Studies for the City of Beirut (1968), a preliminary but comprehensive survey report, provides detailed information on the city's physical features, land use patterns, utilities, population, and economic characteristics. Fuad I. Khuri, From Village to Suburb (1975), is a detailed account of the social life and organization of two peripheral villages already engulfed by the Beirut metropolis in the years before the civil war, which have since become the principal Shi'ite Muslim suburbs of West Beirut. Samir Khalaf and Per Kongstad, Hamra of Beirut: A Case of Rapid Urbanization (1973), is an empirical study that explores the ecological transformation of the social structure of one of Beirut's urban communities. Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (1983), is the standard history of the social and economic growth of Beirut during the last century of the Ottoman period. Michael Johnson, Class & Client in Beirut: The Sunni Muslim Community and the Lebanese State, 1840-1985 (1986), is a historical and sociopolitical study of the Sunnite politics of the city. Harvey Porter, The History of Beirut (1912), is a brief but instructive historical sketch of the city from the earliest times to the beginning of the 20th century. Beirut-Crossroads of Cultures (1970), is a collection of articles on the historical importance of the city down through the ages. Kamal Suleiman Salibi