Ethnic Groups in Lebanon

Ethnic Groups In Lebanon

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Lebanon, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Identifying all Lebanese as ethnically Arab is a widely employed example of panethnicity since in reality, the Lebanese “are descended from many different peoples who have occupied, invaded, or settled this corner of the world,” making Lebanon, “a mosaic of closely interrelated cultures”. While at first glance, this ethnic, linguistic, religious and denominational diversity might seem to cause civil and political unrest, “for much of Lebanon’s history this multitudinous diversity of religious communities has coexisted with little conflict”. About 99% of the population of Lebanon includes numerous Muslim sects and Christian denominations. Because the matter of religious balance is a sensitive political issue, a national census has not been conducted since 1932, before the founding of the modern Lebanese state. Consequently there is an absence of accurate data on the relative percentages of the population of the major religions and groups. 95% of Lebanese people worldwide are primarily Arab and the rest of the 5% are Armenians.