Beirut River

The Beirut River (Nahr Bayrūt) is a 29-kilometre (18 mi) long river in Lebanon separating the city of Beirut from its eastern suburbs, primarily Bourj Hammoud and Sin el Fil. The river flows mostly east to west from snow drains and springs on the western slopes of Mount Kneisseh and the southern end of Mount Sannine near the towns of Hammana and Falougha, before curving north and emptying at Beirut's northern Mediterranean coast, east of the Port of Beirut. According to popular legend, St. George slew the dragon in a spot near the mouth of the river.

During the Stone Age, the land on which Beirut is now built was two islands in the delta of the Beirut River, but over the centuries the river silted up and the two islands were connected into one land mass. The right bank of the Beirut River, southwest of the mountain resort town of Beit Mery at an altitude of approximately 125 metres (410 ft) above sea level, is an archaeological site, "Beit Mery I", discovered by Jesuit Father Dillenseger who determined it to be an Acheulean site; the archaeological finds from the site were donated to the French Faculty of Medicine at Saint Joseph University.

In antiquity, the river was known as Magoras and was the site of the worship of the god of Heliopolis. The Romans built an aqueduct, which had a 240-meter bridge crossing the river, to supply Beirut (Berytus) with water. In the 1880s the aqueduct at Mansourieh was named after Queen Zenobia.

It is believed that Fakhreddine, Lebanon's Renaissance prince, built or repaired a bridge of seven arches on the river that was a streamlet in summer but swelled into a raging torrent in winter.

Flows through: Lebanon.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.