Beirut

RORY: You brought me to Beirut?
DEAN: It’s a salvage yard.
RORY: Ah. And yet it looks so much like Beirut.

Beirut is is the capital of Lebanon, a seaport of more than a million people located on a peninsula. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited for more than five thousand years, and was voted as one of the New7Wonders Cities of the world.

Rory thinks the salvage yard looks like Beirut because of the Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, and was partly caused by changing demographics due to the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories leading to further instability in the Middle East region. Since the war, Beirut has undergone reconstruction and, despite further conflicts, is now a major centre for commerce and tourism.