The largest green space in the city, closed to the public for twenty-five years, and still only partly open.
Beirut has one of the lowest ratios of green space to population of any city in the world — well under one square metre per resident, against a World Health Organization guideline of nine.
Horsh Beirut is by a long way the largest thing it has, at around 33 hectares, and for twenty-five years the city was not allowed into it.
The pine forest
The horsh — the pine wood — has existed since at least the Ottoman period and probably far longer, as a stone pine forest on the sandy ground south of the city. Emir Fakhr al-Din is said to have extended it in the seventeenth century.
It shrank steadily as Beirut grew, and it was badly burned during the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982.
The site sits at the meeting point of three districts — Tariq el-Jdideh (Sunni), Chiyah (Shia) and Badaro/Achrafieh (Christian) — and the Green Line ran along its eastern edge.
The closure
After the civil war ended in 1990, the park was closed for replanting, funded by the Île-de-France region, which supplied the trees.
It stayed closed for twenty-five years.
Entry was by permit, granted essentially to foreigners and to selected Lebanese. The stated reasons shifted — the trees needed protecting, the site was unsafe, there was no budget for staff. The widely believed reason was that a public space at the junction of three sectarian districts was considered a security risk, and that the authorities preferred not to have one.
The reopening
A campaign led by the NGO NAHNOO ran from 2010, with research, petitions, public events and steady pressure on the municipality.
Horsh Beirut reopened in September 2015, initially on limited days and with conditions.
Access has been partial and inconsistent since. It has been open on some days and not others, closed entirely during the pandemic and at other points, and parts of the site have been used for purposes that have drawn criticism — including, at various times, temporary structures and a fire station.
The campaign continues.
What it is like
Stone pines, mostly replanted and now mature enough to give real shade, with paths, benches and a running track.
It is not manicured and it is not dramatic. It is thirty-three hectares of trees in a city that has almost none, and on a day when it is open it fills with families, joggers and people simply sitting under a tree, which in Beirut is not a small thing.
The other green spaces
Sanayeh Garden — the oldest public garden in the city, small, central and reliably open.
René Moawad Garden (Sioufi) in Achrafieh, on a slope with a view.
The Corniche, which is the city’s real public space and is not a park.
Jesuit Garden in Geitawi, small and well used.
That is essentially the list, for a city of over two million in its wider area, and it explains a great deal about why the Corniche matters so much.
Practical
Free. Entrances on several sides; the main one is on the Badaro/Qasqas edge.
Confirm the current opening arrangements — this is the single most important thing on this page.
