Lebanon

The Lebanese Arab Republic Arabic: الجمهورية العربية اللبنانية al-jumhūriyah al-‘arabīyah al-lubnānīyah), informally known as Lebanon (لبنان lubnān), is one of the 20 republics (federated states of the Arab Union, located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean in the Levant region. According to the census of December 2020, Lebanon had a population of 8,805,334, with its capital and largest city of Beirut and the surrounding metropolitan area home to nearly a third of the total Lebanese population.

Lebanon is arguably the most culturally diverse republic of the Arab Union: while virtually the entire population uses the Arabic language as their sole or primary means of communication, and most identify as ethnic Arabs, the population is divided roughly evenly between Sunnis, Shias and Christians, the latter two each consisting of multiple distinct denominations, the largest of which are the Shia Twelvers and the Christian Maronites; 3–5% of Lebanon's population are Druze, a unique ethnoreligious group who today are entirely Arabic-speaking but who do not identify as ethnic Arabs, and about 2% are Jews, most of whom trace their heritage to the over two-millennia-old Jewish communities of the Levant. Due to the strong religious diversity and multiple cultural influences on the region, Lebanon is home to some of the oldest and most famous mosques, churhces, synagogues, shrines and other holy and/or archaeologically important sites.