Map of Beyrouth

View Larger Map The city of Beirut is laid out on a peninsula between two big hills, Al-Ashrafiyah and the Al-Musaytibah. The rest of Lebanon seems to be hilly and mountainous, and this small stretch of relatively flat coastline is logically where the city grew, as it's accessible from water and from the paths leading into the mountains... Here's an interesting link to a scholarly document on the "Historical Topography of Beirut," which is quoted below:
"One must examine its geographical context in order to understand why Beirut existed. Beirut peninsula occupies a complex site wedged between the base of the Mount Lebanon range, and the sea, which surrounds it on two of its three sides. This triangularshaped area is far from being uniform. Two hills (named the Asharafiyyeh and Ra's-Bayrut hills for convenience) occupy the northern part of the peninsula. The Ra's-Bayrut hill falls steeply into the sea at the Rawsheh cliffs, while the eastern edge of Ashrafiyyeh was cut by the Beirut river forming an escarpment at Siufe and Karm az-Zaytun. These two hills overlook low-lying areas to the North and South. To the South a more-or-less flat plain extends towards Burg al-Baragneh and Shuayfat. The soils are rich and fertile with mainly colluvial deposits washed down from the overlooking hills and mountain. However, to the South-West, sand dunes resulting from sediments brought to the shore by sea currents and blown inwards by the prevailing south-westerly winds have encroached on this plain. With vegetation unable to colonize the area, the dunes have slowly advanced, rendering agriculture precarious on the fringes of the fertile plain."