Tripoli, Lebanon

Tripoli (Standard Arabic: طرابلس Ṭarābulus, and Arabic: طَرَابُلُس‎  Trâblous, Greek: Τρίπολις Tripolis) is a city in Lebanon. Situated north of Batroun and the cape of Lithoprosopon, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District (in Lebanon the districts are subunits of governorates). The city is located 85 km north of the capital Beirut, and is the easternmost port of Lebanon.

In ancient times, it was the center of a Phoenician confederation which included Tyre, Sidon and Arados, hence the name Tripoli, meaning "triple city" in Greek. Later, it was controlled successively by the Assyrian Empire, Persian Empire, Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Caliphate, the Seljuk Empire, Crusader States, the Mamluks, the Ottoman Empire and France. The Crusaders established the County of Tripoli there in the twelfth century.

Tripoli is today the second-largest city and second-largest port in Lebanon, with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims (approximately 80%), along with a small minority of Orthodox and Maronite Christians, and a small minority of Alawite Muslims.

The city borders El Mina, the port of the Tripoli District, which it is geographically conjoined with to form the greater Tripoli conurbation.

Just offshore is a string of four small islands, the only islands of Lebanon. The largest, known as the island of Palm trees or Rabbits’ Island (جزرة الارانب), is now a nature reserve for green turtles and rare birds. Declared a protected area by UNESCO in 1992, camping, fire building or other depredation is forbidden. This island also holds Roman and Crusader ruins.

More commonly known as the Rachid Karami Exhibition, it was designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. Its Construction was put on hault in 1975 due to the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war and was never recommenced. It contains 15 buildings by Niemeyer on approximately 10,000 hectare, and is located on Tripoli's southern entrance. The whole complex is currently deserted, there has been some plans to revive and re-plan it, but was all unsuccessful due to political but mainly because it ruins the current architecture.