The name "Ammatour" is derived from the words 'Ain Maa Tour' (عين ماء طور), meaning the spring of the mountain.

[1] Politically and administratively, Ammatour was declared one of the five "Special status" villages in Mount Lebanon in 1711, which were outside the control of any "iqta'" (feudal lordship).

[10] Ammatour has about 4000 registered residents made up of a Druze majority and a Christian minority consisting of Melkite Catholics and Maronites.

In 1936 a group of young, educated people from Ammatour founded one of Lebanon's first public libraries, and named it "Ghurfat Al-Mutala'a Ad-Dimuqratiyya" (The Democratic Reading Room).

It’s only half-finished at the moment, but when it is complete it will be a place where a million trees can be grown at a time and then transported to areas at risk of desertification and other threats to the environment.