Lebanon 🇱🇧

Lebanon is a country in Western Asia, one of the 17 entries this site files under that subregion. In formal use it is Lebanese Republic. The capital is Beirut.

Its territory runs to 10,452 km², which ranks it 169th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the Gambia and just ahead of Cyprus. That makes it a fraction smaller than Jamaica.

Some 5.8 million people call it home, placing it 115th of 249 by population — between Denmark above it and Finland below. Among the 17 entries in Western Asia it ranks 15th by area and 10th by population.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 33.8° N, 35.8° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 3,766 km from the equator, in what geographers would call subtropical latitudes.

China, Morocco and Bermuda sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

2 countries share a land border with it: Israel and Syria. The largest of them by area is Syria, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 34.6 million people.

Unlike its landlocked neighbours it reaches the sea directly, while also sharing land frontiers.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 555 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

Officially it is multilingual, listing Arabic and French. Arabic, the first listed, is shared with 24 other entries worldwide.

The demonym is Lebanese, so residents are Lebanese.

Inside Asia it places 37th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 1.9% of everyone living in Western Asia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Lebanon ranks 169th of 249 by area and 115th by population. That works out at less than a thousandth of a percent of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 0.071% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Lebanon in the size ordering are Gambia at 10,689 km² and Cyprus at 9,251 km², against Lebanon's 10,452 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Lebanon averages 555 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 23rd of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

Zoom in from the world to Western Asia and Lebanon sits 10th of 17 by population and 15th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Israel just above and Palestine just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Türkiye is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Western Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇮🇱 Israel
• 🇵🇸 Palestine
• 🇹🇷 Türkiye

The Lebanese pound (LBP) is used only in Lebanon among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. French is listed for 46 entries here, Lebanon among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

It uses the Lebanese pound (ل.ل, LBP). That currency appears nowhere else on this list.

The top-level domain is .lb. The international dialling code is +961. In ISO terms it is lb in two letters and LBN in three.

Beirut is the city to remember for this country.

Lebanon is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.