[3] The region receives limited rainfall, particularly in the north, because Mount Lebanon creates a rain shadow that blocks precipitation coming from the sea.

[5] The northern end of the valley, with its scarce rainfall and less fertile soils, is used primarily as grazing land by pastoral nomads.

Farther south, more fertile soils support crops of wheat, maize, cotton, and vegetables, with vineyards and orchards centered on Zahlé.

Ard Tlaili is a small tell mound with an archaeological site, located on a plain at the foot of the Lebanon Mountain, just 11 km (7 mi) northwest of Baalbeck, in the Beqaa Valley.

[6] Labweh is a village at an elevation of 950 metres (3,120 ft) on a foothill of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Baalbek District, Baalbek-Hermel Governorate, Lebanon, settled since the Neolithic period.

[6] In the Middle Bronze IIA, the Beqa Valley was a highway between the regional power of Qatna in the north and its vassal Hazor in the south.

The town of Anjar, situated in the eastern part of the valley, has a predominantly Armenian Lebanese population and is famous for its 8th-century Arab ruins.

Other towns in the Western Beqaa district are Machghara, Sabghine, Kamed al Lawz, Qab Elias, Sohmor, Yohmor.

Rachaiya al Wadi, east of the Western Beqaa district, is home to Lebanon's share of Mount Hermon and borders Syria also.

Due to wars and the unstable economic and political conditions Lebanon faced in the past, with difficulties some farmers still face today, many previous inhabitants of the valley left for coastal cities in Lebanon or emigrated from the country altogether, with the majority residing in North America, South America or Australia.

[13] During the Lebanese Civil War, cannabis cultivation was a major source of income in the Beqaa Valley, where most of the country's hashish and opium was produced.

[14] Under pressure from the U.S. State Department, the occupying Syrian Army plowed up the Beqaa's cannabis fields and sprayed them with poison.

Although important during the civil war, opium cultivation has become marginal, dropping from an estimated 30 metric tonnes per year in 1983 to negligible amounts in 2004.

Due to increasing political unrest that weakened the central Lebanese government during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2007 Opposition boycott of the government, and due to the lack of viable alternatives, UN promises of irrigation projects and alternative crop subsidies that never materialized, drug cultivation and production have significantly increased.

[17][18] They remain a fraction of the civil war era production and are limited north of the town of Baalbek, where the rule of tribal law protecting armed families is still strong.