PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
November 2020
661
by
Clifford J. Mugnier, CP, CMS, FASPRS
T
here is evidence of human habitation in Lebanon for
several thousand years from the mid-3rd millennium
B.C. that had been under the control variously of
Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and
Babylonians. Once part of the Persian Empire, Alexander
the Great conquered the region in the 4
th
century B.C., and
it later flourished under the Roman Empire. Lebanon was
overrun by Muslim Arabs in A.D. 635–636, and remained
under the Turks during the Crusades until the British and
French invaded during WWI because Turkey was an ally of
Germany.
Lebanon is almost three-fourths the size of Connecticut,
and is comprised of a narrow coastal plain; the Bekaa Valley
separates Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Bor-
dered by Israel (79 km) to the south and by Syria (375 km)
to the east and north; the western side of the republic is the
Mediterranean Sea (225 km). Lebanon has a territorial sea
claim of 12 nautical miles, and the highest point in the coun-
try is Qurnat as Sawda’ at 3,088 m. The League of Nations
declared the republic independent of the French Mandate on
22 November 1943.
In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte commenced his military
campaign for the conquest of Egypt and “Upper Egypt” (the
Palestine and Greater Syria).
La Carte d’Egypte et de Syrie
was published by the
Dépôt de la Guerre
beginning in 1808.
The ersatz Datum was based on astronomical observations
in Cairo and Jerusalem, and was referenced to the Plessis
ellipsoid where the semi-major axis
a
= 6,375,738.7 m and
the reciprocal of flattening 1/
f
= 334.29. Much of the coast
was actually based on published British Admiralty charts
of the time (see The State of Israel,
PE&RS
, August 2000).
The projection was the ellipsoidal Bonne, the “standard”
for France and most of Europe at the time. “
Le centre de la
projection correspond à l’axe de la grande pyramide du Nord,
à Memphis
.” (The center of the projection corresponds to the
axis of the great pyramid of the North at Memphis.)
The French
Expédition du Liban
(1860–1861) was made
after the massacre of Christians in Syria (and Lebanon)
occurred during the months of May and June of 1860. After
enforcing the peace, one topographic brigade remained to
perform some exploratory mapping. Some minor triangu-
lation was performed from Tyre to Tripoli along the coast.
This resulted in one reconnaissance sheet at 1:100,000 scale,
and one 1:200,000-scale sheet being published in 1862.
The early maps of Turkey, including the Levant area,
were on the Bonne projection also, but the projection origin
was the finial of the dome of the Aya Sofia Mosque. The
Ottoman Turkish ellipsoidal Bonne of Syria, used from
1909 to 1923 (and the territory of what is now Lebanon),
had a projection Latitude of Origin (
j
o
) = 28° 58´ 50.8188˝
N and the Central Meridian (
l
o
) = 39° 36´ East of Green-
wich. The geodetic network was calculated on the Clarke
1880 (IGN) ellipsoid where
a
= 6,378,249.2 m and 1/
f
=
293.4660208, and according to the
Service Géographique de
l’Armée
(SGA), the Datum Origin was at the South End of
the Base of Makri Keuî, near Constantinople (Istanbul). The
1:200,000- scale general map of Asia Minor was published in
1911 under the direction of General Mehmed Sevki Pacha,
The Grids & Datums column has completed an exploration of
every country on the Earth. For those who did not get to enjoy this
world tour the first time,
PE&RS
is reprinting prior articles from
the column. This month’s article on the Lebanese Republic was
originally printed in 2002 but contains updates to their coordinate
system since then.
THE
LEBANESE
REPUBLIC
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 86, No. 11, November 2020, pp. 661–664.
0099-1112/20/661–664
© 2020 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.86.11.661
