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'Mount Lebanon' (Arabic: جبل لبنان), as a geographic designation, is the mountain range that extends across the whole country of Lebanon along about 160 km (100 mi), parallel to the Mediterranean coast and rising to 3,088 m (10,131 ft). Lebanon has historically been defined by these mountains, which provided protection for the local population. The snowy peaks may have given Lebanon its name in antiquity; ''laban'' is Aramaic for "white". In Lebanon the changes in scenery are not connected to geographical distances, but to altitudes. The mountains were known for their oak and pine forests. Also, in the high slopes of Mount Lebanon are the last remaining groves of the famous Cedars of Lebanon (''Cedrus libani''). The Phoenicians used the forests from Mount Lebanon to build their ship fleet and to trade with their Levantine neighbours. However, the Phoenicians and successor rulers replanted and restocked the range such that even as late as the 16th century, its forested area was considerable.

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''Mount Lebanon'', as a political name

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''Mount Lebanon'', as a political name

'Mount Lebanon' also lent its name to two political designations: a semi-autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire that existed before World War I, and the central Governorate of modern Lebanon (see Mount Lebanon Governorate).
The Mount Lebanon administrative region emerged in a time of rise of nationalism. The indigenous Christian community experienced incessant oppressive discrimination by alternating Moslem rule. Starting in the early 1800s over several decades, the Ottomans released successive Druze, Kurdish, and Sunni clans on the area backed by the protective force of the Ottoman Imperial Army. After near apocalyptic Jihads, the Maronites realized the necessity of Ethnonationalism for their own protection. European powers (mainly France and Britain) intervened on behalf of the local Christian population and in 1861 the "'Mount Lebanon'" autonomous district was established within the Ottoman system, under an international guarantee.
It was ruled by a non-Lebanese Christian subject of the Ottoman Empire (known locally as the "Mutassareff", one who rules the district Mutasarrifiyya). Christians formed the majority of the population of Mount Lebanon, with a significant number of Druze.
During World War I, the Ottoman Empire launched a campaign against the Maronites as part of its Middle Eastern region wide massacre of Christians. As part of this campaign, the Ottoman fleet blockaded the entire Levantine coast, encircled the region with troops and cut off Mount Lebanon from the rest of the world. In Lebanon it is estimated today that half the population of Mount Lebanon died of orchestrated famine during this time.
(Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5])
For decades the Christians pressured the European powers, and the United States, to award them self determination by extending their small Lebanese territory to what they dubbed "Greater Lebanon", referring to a geographic unit comprising Mount Lebanon and its coast, and the Beqaa Valley to its east.
France took hold of the formally Ottoman holdings in the northern Levant, and expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon in 1920 to form Greater Lebanon which was to be populated by remnants of the Middle Eastern Christian community. While the Christians ended up gaining, territorially, almost twice the area they requested, the hoped-for resettlement of Christians into the area never materialized and the new borders merely jeopardized the demographic dominance of Christians in the newly created territory.
In retrospect, Mount Lebanon can be seen as the seed of Lebanese nationalism and, in turn, statehood. The next stage of its political evolution, Greater Lebanon in its "greater" boundaries, created to suit the interests of France, and implemented without additional Christian settlers, might be the liable seed of modern Lebanon's ongoing volatile plight.

See also

★ Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire

★ French Mandate of Lebanon

★ Mount Lebanon Governorate