Lebanon is a country in theMiddle East, inWestern Asia, next to theMediterranean Sea. It hasborders withIsrael to the south andSyria to the east and north. It also shares a maritime border withCyprus to the northwest, away from the country's short distance.
Lebanon was namedPhoenicia under theRoman Empire. Some of the biggest temples in Antiquity were there atHeliopolis. In the 7th centuryArabs conquered Phoenicia and imposed their religionIslam. But many areas in the mountains remainedChristian as the "Maronites". However, the Christians who remained in the mountains became Arabized and started identifying themselves as "Arab Christians".
Lebanon is divided into sixgovernorates. These are divided into 25 districts.[18] The districts are also divided into several municipalities. The governorates and their districts are listed below:
↑Note: Many Lebanese Christians do not identify as "Arab" but rather as descendants of the ancientCanaanites and prefer to be called "Phoenician".
↑Note: Most Druze do not identify as Muslim, but Druze are classified by the Lebanese government as one of the five Muslim communities in Lebanon (Sunni, Shia, Druze, Alawi, and Ismaili).
↑Because the relative sizes of different religions and religious sects remains a sensitive issue, a national census has not been conducted since 1932. There are 18 state-recognized religious sects – four Muslim, 12 Christian, one Druze, and one Jewish
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