> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://beirutwire.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Orchards and Agricultural Land That Once Surrounded Beirut - URL: https://beirutwire.com/the-orchards-and-agricultural-land-that-once-surrounded-beirut/ - Published: 2026-09-20T06:47:39.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-20T06:47:39.000Z - Description: Before Beirut became a dense urban capital, much of today’s city was farmland. Ras Beirut, Achrafieh, Mousseitbeh, Saifi, Raouche and even areas around Hamra were once covered with orchards, vineyards, mulberry plantations and vegetable fields. - Author: Beirut Wire - Tags: Culture It is difficult to imagine today, but much of what is now Beirut was once farmland. Before the city expanded into the dense urban landscape we know today, neighborhoods such as Ras Beirut, Achrafieh, Mousseitbeh, Saifi and parts of what later became Hamra were surrounded by orchards, vineyards, mulberry plantations and vegetable fields. Beirut was a compact coastal town, and beyond its walls stretched a broad agricultural belt. In the early 19th century, the contrast was striking. French writer Alphonse de Lamartine, who arrived in Beirut in 1832, described fields filled with mulberry, carob, fig, orange and pomegranate trees, with olive trees rising behind them. Contemporary maps and later archival research show large areas of cultivated land surrounding the old city. These orchards were not simply decorative. They helped feed Beirut. Research on the city’s agricultural history shows that the gardens and orchards surrounding Beirut functioned partly as a food reserve, providing fruit, vegetables and other produce for the growing urban population. Local terms such as boustan for orchard or garden, karm for vineyard and aouda for cultivated plot were once part of the physical geography of Beirut’s outskirts. Ras Beirut, now one of the most urbanized parts of the capital, looked completely different. In the late 19th century, it was a relatively remote agricultural area with scattered houses, vineyards, orange groves and cactus-lined fields. AUB’s archives describe Ras Beirut as sparsely inhabited and largely cultivated, with residents growing crops such as radishes, potatoes, lentils and mulberries. The mulberry tree was especially important. From the 17th century onward, and particularly during the 19th century, mulberry cultivation expanded dramatically because its leaves were used to feed silkworms. Lebanon’s silk industry connected local farmers to European markets, especially France, and reshaped the countryside around Beirut and Mount Lebanon. By the late 19th century, mulberry plantations had spread widely across the outskirts of Beirut. Even areas such as Chouran and Raouche were heavily agricultural. Archival studies describe mulberry groves separated by cactus hedges, alongside orange trees, vineyards, lettuce fields and other crops. As late as the 1930s, cadastral maps still showed large agricultural plots in what is now some of Beirut’s most expensive real estate. Achrafieh was also far greener than it is today. The broader eastern and southeastern edges of Beirut contained gardens, orchards and groves rather than continuous urban construction. The same was true of Mousseitbeh and Saifi. Contemporary descriptions mention almond trees, olive trees, figs, pomegranates, carob trees, sycamores, cactus and cypress throughout the city’s expanding suburbs. Some of Beirut’s neighborhood names still preserve that history. Gemmayzeh takes its name from the sycamore tree, Zeitouné from the olive tree, Kharouba from the carob tree, and Tiné from the fig. The trees largely disappeared, but their names remained embedded in the geography of the city. Even Hamra once sat among orchards. A historical World Bank study of Beirut notes that during the first half of the 20th century, Ras Beirut had begun to urbanize along the coast and Bliss Street, while the area around what later became Hamra Street was still largely surrounded by orchards. The transformation began gradually. Before 1840, most of Beirut remained concentrated within its old defensive walls. As security improved and roads were built outward, wealthier families began constructing houses beyond the old city, often surrounded by gardens. By the 1820s and 1830s, some Beirutis were already using houses outside the walls as summer residences. The growth accelerated after the middle of the century. Beirut became an increasingly important Mediterranean port, attracting merchants, migrants and capital. The Beirut-Damascus road, completed in the 1860s, improved regional connections and helped the city expand beyond its traditional core. New residential districts gradually replaced parts of the agricultural landscape. By 1837, one account estimated that roughly half of Beirut’s population was already living in the gardens surrounding the old town rather than inside the original walls. As permanent settlement outside the walls became safer, villas and houses multiplied among the orchards. At first, the city and agriculture existed side by side. Large houses were frequently surrounded by productive gardens containing fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. These were not purely ornamental gardens in the modern sense. They could provide food, shade, income and a cooler environment around the home. Over time, however, rising land values changed the equation. As Beirut grew during the French Mandate and especially after independence, agricultural land became increasingly valuable for construction. Roads expanded, apartment buildings appeared and formerly peripheral areas were absorbed into the city. The decisive transformation came after the Second World War. Rapid population growth, migration from rural Lebanon and the rise of Beirut as the country’s economic and administrative center pushed development outward. Areas that only decades earlier contained fields and orchards became residential and commercial neighborhoods. Raouche, for example, remained significantly agricultural into the first half of the 20th century. It was only from the 1950s onward that intensive construction began transforming the area, with luxury hotels and apartment buildings replacing much of the remaining cultivated land. The same process occurred across Beirut. Hamra became a major commercial district. Ras Beirut became one of the capital’s most densely built neighborhoods. Achrafieh expanded vertically. Orchards were divided into plots, sold and replaced by streets and buildings. Today, very little remains. One of the most striking survivors is the Tobagi garden in Mar Mikhael, often described as one of Beirut’s last functioning orchards. The roughly 4,700-square-meter property has existed for more than a century and contains terraces, mature trees and remnants of a landscape that once covered large parts of the city. Its survival is almost accidental. It is now surrounded on all sides by dense apartment buildings, making the contrast particularly dramatic. What appears today as an unusual patch of green would once have looked completely normal. The disappearance of Beirut’s orchards changed more than the appearance of the city. Agricultural land once absorbed rainwater, moderated temperatures, provided shade and connected neighborhoods to local food production. Its replacement by concrete contributed to hotter streets, reduced green space and greater pressure on drainage systems. But the older landscape still survives in fragments. It survives in photographs of cactus-lined roads in Ras Beirut, in cadastral maps showing enormous agricultural plots where apartment blocks now stand, in surviving gardens hidden behind walls, and even in neighborhood names that refer to trees no longer present. Modern Beirut often feels like a city that has always been dense. It was not. Less than two centuries ago, much of today’s capital was a patchwork of orchards, vineyards, mulberry plantations and vegetable fields wrapped around a small port city. The concrete came later.