Dhour El Choueir is a mountain town in Lebanon ('dhour' meaning 'summit, top [of a mountain]'). It lies slightly north of the main Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

 Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 highway. It overlooks the city of Beirut and the Mediterranean sea. It is 30 km from Beirut and 42 km from Beirut International Airport.

It is one of Mount Lebanon's most favored summer resorts. Dhour El-Choueir is important for its August yearly carnival, honoring Lebanon's emigrants.

The Greek Catholic monk Abd Allah Zakhir set up an Arabic language

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 printing press

Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

 using movable type

Movable type

Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

 at the monastery of Saint John at Choueir, the first home made press in Lebanon. He personally cut the type molds and did the founding of the elegant typeface. He created the first true Arabic script type in the Middle East. A prior "Arabic" press at the Maar Quz?hayy Monastery in Lebanon had transliterated the Arabic language using Syriac script. The first book off the Zakhir press was in 1734; this press continued to be used until 1899.

It is the birthplace of Anton Saadeh

Antun Saadeh

Antun Saadeh was a Lebanese Syrian nationalist philosopher, writer and politician who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.-Life:...

 who founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party

Syrian Social Nationalist Party

The Syrian Social Nationalist Party , is a secular nationalist political party in Lebanon and Syria. It advocates the establishment of a Syrian nation state spanning the Fertile Crescent, including present day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Cyprus, Kuwait,...

 and of Tanios Bou-Nader Khneisser, the father of the Sword & Shield Folkloric Dance.

The town was on the front line during the Lebanese Civil War

Lebanese Civil War

The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...

.

Edward Said

Edward Said

Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

a Palestinian Writer and Philosopher was a resident of Dhour El Choueir.