Lebanon Essays - Tourism In Lebanon, Roman Colonies, Lebanon

Lebanon Written by: The Prophet Edited by: The Metallian Lebanon, a nation that once proudly called itself the Switzerland of the Middle East, is today a country in name only. Its government controls little more than half of the nation's capital, Beirut. Its once-vibrant economy is a shambles. And its society is fragmented - so fragmented, some believe, that it may be impossible to re-create a unified state responsive to the needs of all its varied peoples. Lebanon lies on the eastern shore of the Mediterranea n Sea, in that part of southwestern Asia known as the Middle East. Because of its location - at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, and Africa - Lebanon has been the center of commerce and trade for thousands of years. It has also been on the route of numerous conquering armies. With an area of 4,015 square miles, Lebanon is one of the smallest countries in the Middle East. It is smaller than every state in the United States except Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Lebanon is sandwiched between Syria in the north and east and Israel in the south. The maximum distance from the nation's northern border to the southern one is only 130 miles. And the maximum distance from the Mediterranean Sea to the Lebanon-Syria border is 50 miles. In the south, along the border with Israel, Lebanon's eastern border is only 20 miles from the sea. Although a tiny land, Lebanon boasts a great diversity in its landscape which makes it one of the most picturesque countries in the world. The coast line is br oken by many bays and inlets of varying size. At some points, the mountains wade silently right into the sea - then climb suddenly tier on tier away from the Mediterranean to the sky. Because of the limitation of flat agricultural land, all but the steepest hillsides have been patiently and neatly terraced and planted with garlands of twisted grapevines. The mountains lend a great variety of hues - pale pink, rosy red, forest green or deep purple - to the landscape. Depending on the time of day, they never appear the same twice, and from time to time whipped white clouds hide all except their snow-capped peaks. Even on the darkest night, the lights of the villages perched on the mountains shine in small clusters as a reminder of their presence. On c loser view, the mountains become a jumble of giant gorges, many of them over a thousand feet deep, with rocky cliffs, steep ravines and awesome valleys. These unassailable bastions have offered a secure hideaway, throughout history, for hermits and persecuted groups seeking refuge. Lebanon has four distinct geographical regions: a narrow - but fertile - coastal plain; two roughly parallel mountain ranges that run the full length of the country - the Lebanon, which rises in the west to an alpine hei ght of 11,000 feet while the eastern range, the anti-Lebanon, is crowned magestically by the snow-capped Mount Hermon at 9,232 feet. The two chains of mountains shelter between them a well-cultivated plateau extending seventy miles in length and fifteen miles in width. This tableland is called the Bekaa. This is a fertile strip of land 110 miles long and six to ten miles wide. Zahle, the third largest city in the country, is in the valley. The country's two most important rivers, the Litani and the Orontes, rise in the northern Bekaa near Baalbek, a city that dates to Roman times. The Litani flows southwest through the Bekaa Valley and then empties into the Mediterranean Sea north of Tyre. Its waters are used for irrigation, so it becomes a mere tr ickle by the time it gets to the sea. The Orontes rises not far from the Litani, but it flows northward between the two mountain ranges, wending its way into Syria. Beyond the Bekaa and the anti-Lebanon mountains, the Syrian desert only stretches east f or about 800 miles to the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This geography has been a determining factor for millenia in keeping Lebanon turned toward the West. The landscape cannot be described without mentioning the most celebrated tree o f Lebanon, the cedar. Called by the Lebanese "Cedar of the Lord," this famed tree retains somewhat of a sacred aura this day. It has become the symbol of Lebanon and appears in the center of the flag, on the coins, and often on postage stamps. Since an cient times the cedar constituted a valuable export which provided King Solomon with timber