The Anti-Lebanon mountains is the Western name for the Eastern Lebanon Mountain Range (Arabic: جبال لبنان الشرقية), which are a southwest-northeast-trending mountain range between Syria and Lebanon.[1] Its Western name (Anti-Lebanon) comes from the Greek word for ‘opposite’. The majority of the mountain range lies in Syria. The border between Syria and Lebanon is largely defined along the crest of the range. At its southern end it is also within the Golan Heights. The range lies east of and parallel (opposite) to the Mount Lebanon range. To the west lies the Beqaa Valley in the north and the Hasbani River valley in the south. These valleys separate it from the Lebanon range in central Lebanon. To the east, in Syria, lies the Eastern Plateau which contains the city of Damascus.
The Anti-Lebanon range is approximately 150 km in length. To the north, it extends to almost the latitude of the Syrian city of Homs before dying out. To the south, the range coalesces with the Golan Heights plateau but includes the highest peaks of Mount Hermon (Jabal el-Shaykh, in Arabic), at 2,814 metres, and Ta'la't Musa, at 2,669 metres. These peaks are snow-covered for much of the year and are located on the Lebanese-Syrian border.