Akkar al-Atika (; also spelled Akkar al-Atiqa or Aakkar El Aatiqa) is a town and municipality located in the

Akkar Governorate Akkar Governorate () is the northernmost governorate of Lebanon. It comprises the single district of Akkar, which in turn is subdivided into 121 municipalities. The capital is at Halba. It covers an area of and is bounded by the Mediterranean ...

in northern

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. It is about north of

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. Akkar al-Atika contains the 11th-century fortress of

Gibelacar Gibelacar (), also known by its original Arabic name Hisn Ibn Akkar () or its modern Arabic name Qal'at Akkar (), is a fortress in the village of Akkar al-Atiqa in the Akkar Governorate in northern Lebanon. The fortress dates back to the Fatimid e ...

(Hisn Ibn Akkar in Arabic), which was utilized by the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

and became the headquarters of the

Sayfa Yusuf Sayfa Pasha (; – 22 July 1625) was a chieftain and ''multazim'' (tax farmer) in the Tripoli region who frequently served as the Ottoman ''beylerbey'' (provincial governor) of Tripoli Eyalet between 1579 and his death. Yusuf or his f ...

clan, whose members were chieftains and Ottoman governors of Tripoli and its districts in from the late 16th until the mid-17th centuries. The village had a estimated population of 17,000 living in about 3,550 houses in 2011. Its inhabitants are

Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...

s. The average elevation of Akkar al-Atika is above sea level and the village has a total land area of 2,838

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. Most of the village's labor force, who form about a third of the population, mainly work in the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

or education sector with about 10% deriving their main income from permanent or seasonal agriculture. Nonetheless, agriculture constitutes as a supplementary income for much of the population. The relatively large role it plays in the village stems from its abundance of cultivable land; most of the village's households own at least a tract of agricultural land or work in it. The principal crops grown apples, walnuts, peaches, persimmon, olives and tomatoes and the main agricultural products are apple cider and vinegar, fruit jams, chickens, milk and cheeses. Much of Akkar al-Atika's agricultural output is sold in the markets of Tripoli and the governorate capital of Halba. Akkar al-Atika has abundant forest lands, though over half of its forests were destroyed between 2000 and 2010 due to fires, woodcutting and conversion of the lands for agricultural use.

Notable residents

* Ahmad Ali El Zein, novelist, filmmaker and journalist

References

{{Akkar District Populated places in Akkar District Sunni Muslim communities in Lebanon