State of Greater Lebanon | ||||||||||
État du Grand Liban دولة لبنان الكبير |
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Mandate of the French Third Republic | ||||||||||
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Location of Greater Lebanon (green) within the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon.
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Capital | Beirut | |||||||||
Languages |
French Arabic |
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Religion |
Christianity Islam |
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Political structure | League of Nations Mandate | |||||||||
Historical era | Interwar period | |||||||||
• | Mandate issued | 1920 | ||||||||
• | Independence | 1943 | ||||||||
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The State of Greater Lebanon (Arabic: دولة لبنان الكبير Dawlat Lubnān al-Kabīr; French: État du Grand Liban) was a state declared in September 1920, and the predecessor of modern Lebanon.
The state was declared as a League of Nations Mandate under the terms of the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon which was to be ratified in 1923. When the Ottoman Empire was formally split up by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, it was decided that four of its territories in the Middle East should be League of Nations mandates temporarily governed by the United Kingdom and France on behalf of the League. The British were given Palestine and Iraq, while the French were given a mandate over Syria and Lebanon.
General Gouraud proclaimed the establishment of the state with its present boundaries after splitting few Syrian villages on the southern and western borders with Lebanon and adding them to Lebanon and with Beirut as its capital. The new territory was granted a flag, merging the French flag with the Lebanese cedar.