Beirut has around 360,000 people inside the municipal boundary and roughly 2.4 million in the wider metropolitan area — about half the population of Lebanon, which is a little over five million, plus the largest per-capita refugee population in the world.
The layout
Beirut sits on a promontory pushing north-west into the Mediterranean, with Mount Lebanon rising immediately behind it. You can be at 1,500 metres in forty minutes.
Downtown — the rebuilt centre, with Martyrs’ Square, the mosque, the cathedrals and the Roman remains.
Hamra and Ras Beirut — west, with the American University, the bookshops and Raouché.
Achrafieh, Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael — east, on and below the hill, with the old houses, the museums and the nightlife.
Badaro and the National Museum — south of the centre, on the old Green Line.
Bourj Hammoud — the Armenian quarter, east of the port.
The southern suburbs (Dahieh) — dense, populous, and where visitors do not go.
The Corniche runs round the whole seaward edge and is the city’s shared ground.
The sects
Lebanon officially recognises eighteen religious communities and distributes political office among them.
By the National Pact of 1943, the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. Parliamentary seats are divided by confession. Personal status law — marriage, divorce, inheritance — is administered by fifteen separate religious courts, and there is no civil marriage in Lebanon (couples go to Cyprus).
The distribution rests on a census taken in 1932 which has never been repeated, because nobody wants the result.
This system was designed to hold a plural society together and it also institutionalises the divisions it manages, which is the central argument of Lebanese politics and has been for eighty years.
As a visitor: do not ask people what sect they are. You will often be able to guess from a name or a neighbourhood, and guessing out loud is rude. Listen far more than you offer opinions.
The languages
Arabic is official. Lebanese Arabic is the spoken form.
French is widely spoken, particularly among older and Christian communities and in education. English is widely spoken, particularly among the young and in business.
Trilingual code-switching within one sentence — “Hi, kifak, ça va?” — is a real and much-joked-about feature of Beiruti speech.
Useful: marhaba (hello), shukran (thank you), min fadlak/fadlik (please), yalla (come on / let’s go), habibi (a universal term of address), kifak/kifik (how are you).
The state
This affects your trip and needs saying plainly.
The electricity grid supplies a few hours a day and everything runs on private generators. Water is intermittent. The banking system has not functioned normally since 2019 and you should bring US dollars in cash — see how much Beirut costs.
Public services are substantially provided by NGOs, the diaspora and neighbourhood organisation rather than by government.
The manner
Warm, direct, funny, and extremely hospitable. You will be fed and you will not be allowed to pay.
Lebanese people are also often startlingly frank about their own country’s failures, in a way that visitors sometimes find uncomfortable. Let them; do not join in enthusiastically.
Where to start
Is Beirut safe before you book. Three days in Beirut for a route. What you should know for the practical rules.