1 · POSITION
Sidon is a Phoenician port on the Lebanese coast, and the register holds it for the khan on its harbour: Khan al-Franj, the caravanserai of the Franks, built in the early Ottoman period, between 1540 and 1560, and leased to the French merchants who wanted a trading post in Syria. [1, 2]
2 · THE KHAN OF THE FRANKS
Its plan is a large central courtyard with a fountain, lined with covered galleries and rooms for storing and trading goods, with a hall for gatherings; the merchants slept on the upper floor. European textiles and sugar were exchanged here for Indian spices and Levantine silk and cotton. [1, 2]
3 · A CONSULATE IN AN INN
Around 1616 the khan housed the French consul, who moved in the 1630s to a neighbouring house; after Emir Fakhr al-Din II took Sidon a convent, an orphanage and other uses were added. The khan was declared a national monument in the 1960s. [1, 2]
4 · TODAY
The French state owns it. The Hariri Foundation took a thirty-five-year lease, restored it from the late 1990s and runs it as a cultural centre with workshops and exhibition rooms. [1, 2]
5 · ⚑ CANDOUR
⚑ Checked on 22 October 2026. The sea castle is confirmed: it was built by the Crusaders in 1228 on the island off the harbour. The khan is attributed to Fakhr al-Din II in older accounts and to Sokollu Mehmed Pasha by one source; the attribution is not settled. [1–3]
Sources & Further Reading
Sources checked 22 October 2026.