Barish

E. H. Palmer wrote in 1881 that the name Barish meant "abounding in herbage".^[2]

Anis Freiha said that the origin of the name is Syriac: “The house of the chief and the lieutenant colonel, and he mentioned that there is another possibility that it is from the Hebrew bero ?sh: cypress, and in the Aramaic bero ?sh, and in the Syriac.” ^[3]

Barish is located in the South Governorate, Tyre District. It is 350 m above sea level and 89 kilometers to the southwest of Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, or about an hour and a half, and 16 km from the center of its district Tyre. Its land area is 404 hectares.^[1][4] The number of its registered residents is 5000, expatriates 1500.^{[citation needed]}

In 1875 Victor Guérin found that it had 300 Metawileh inhabitants.^[5] He further noted: "It is surrounded by plantations of fig trees, olive trees and tobacco; some houses and a small mosque were partly built with ancient materials, either found on site or from Broukhai".^[5]

In 1881, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Barish as: "A village, built of stone, containing about 200 Christians, situated on the top of a hill, surrounded by gardens, figs, and arable land; water supplied from cisterns in the village and spring near."^[6]

In 2014 Muslims made up 99.42% of registered voters in Barish. 98.26% of the voters were Shiite Muslims.^[7]