Baalbek

Baalbek is a city in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about 67 kilometers northeast of Beirut, capital of the Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, with about 82,608 residents as of 1998 and a metropolitan population of around 105,000, predominantly Shia Muslim with Sunni Muslim and Christian communities. Renamed Heliopolis, or Sun City, after Alexander the Great's conquest in 334 BC, it flourished under Roman rule as a religious and commercial center known for its grand temple complexes, later underwent transformation through Christianization and the Arab conquest of the 7th century, and in recent decades has been affected by the Lebanese Civil War, the spillover of the Syrian civil war, and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict since 2023.