Jounieh is a coastal city about 16 km (10 mi) north of Beirut, Lebanon and is part of Greater Beirut. Jounieh is known for its seaside resorts and bustling nightlife, as well as its old stone souk, ferry port, and gondola lift (le téléphérique), which takes passengers up the mountain to the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa. Above Jounieh, and on the way to Harissa, a small hill named Bkerké, overlooking the Jounieh bay, is the seat of the Patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church. Residents of Jounieh and the surrounding towns are overwhelmingly Maronite Christians.
In 1913 and during the Mandate era, Jounieh suffered economic decline and recession as the French administration moved part of Jounieh’s administrative role to the Capital, Beirut. This situation stayed the same until the rule of President Fuad Chehab who outfitted the city with all that it needed to become modern. Jounieh then awakened from its slumber with projects for roads, lighting, modern planning, a stadium, a tourist port, a government house, and infrastructure. President Chehab used a number of experts and engineers headed by the French engineer Ekochar. The talk became of “Monte Carlo of the East” and Jounieh stood out as a bride of the Lebanese coast. In 1959, it started to attract banks, the first which were the Lebanese Commerce Bank and the Lebanese Federal Bank. By 1975 the number of banks reached six and today there are 38 banks in addition to the Lebanese Central Bank which was established in 1879.
With the war of 1975, and the division of Beirut into East and West parts and the escalation of the violence, many people fled to safe areas and were organizing their lives in accordance with the new realities. From 1980 to 1990, Jounieh witnessed a massive migration as a large number of the Beirut traders moved to its markets. Buildings took over its green spaces, and the tourist complexes took over its shores. So its features changed randomly though it benefited from the use of the tourist port for commerce. Today, close to 100,000 people reside in Jounieh. Those who live in its suburbs exceed that number. By the middle of the century, it is predicted that Jounieh will become a suburb of Beirut in a coastal line that forms one city that expands the length of the coastal road at a time when the inhabitants of Lebanon will reach six million plus around the year 2025.
The area also witnessed an increase in the price of land from an average of seven to nine Lebanese pounds per square meter between 1950 and 1960 to an average of 25 to 35 Lebanese pounds in 1965. The construction sector developed slowly starting from Sarba to Harat Sakhr, and finally the coast of ‘Alma. The buildings also started expanding around the city as the agricultural sector contracted and became confined to the coasts of Kaslik and some orchards in Ghadir, Harat Sakhr and the coast of ‘Alma. In the beginning of the seventies, Jounieh was transformed to a major and complete tourist center with the tourist network around it and on its edges including: Casino du Liban, the cable cars, the Harisa Church, the caverns in Jeita, restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and the port.
