The most remarkable of the Tyrian buildings were the royal palace, which abutted on the southern wall of the town, and the temples dedicated to Baal, Melkarth, Agenor, and Astarte or Ashtoreth.[424] The probable character of the architecture of these buildings will be hereafter considered.  With respect to their emplacement, it would seem by the most recent explorations that the temple of Baal, called by the Greeks that of the Olympian Zeus, stood by itself on what was originally a separate islet at the south-western corner of the city,[425] while that of Melkarth occupied a position as nearly as possible central,[426] and that of Agenor was placed near the point in which the island terminates toward the north.[427] The houses of the inhabitants were closely crowded together, and rose to the height of several storeys.[428] There was an open space for the transaction of business within the walls towards the east, called Eurychorus by those Phoenicians who wrote their histories in Greek.[429] The town was full of dyeing establishments, which made it difficult to traverse.[430] The docks and dockyards were towards the east.

The population of the island Tyre, when it was captured by Alexander, seems to have been about forty thousand souls.[431] As St. Malo, a city less than one-third of the size, is known to have had at one time a population of twelve thousand,[432] the number, though large for the area, would seem not to be incredible.

Of Palae-Tyrus, or the continental Tyre, no satisfactory account can be given, since it has absolutely left no remains, and the classical notices on the subject are exceedingly scanty.  At different periods of its history, its limits and extent probably varied greatly.  Its position was nearly opposite the island, and in the early times it must have been, like the other coast towns, strongly fortified; but after its capture by Alexander the walls do not seem to have been restored, and it became an open straggling town, extending along the shore from the river Leontes (Litany) to Ras-el-Ain, a distance of seven miles or more.  Pliny, who wrote when its boundary could still be traced, computed the circuit of Palae-Tyrus and the island Tyre together at nineteen Roman miles,[433] the circuit of the island by itself being less than three miles.  Its situation, in a plain of great fertility, at the foot of the south-western spurs of Lebanon, and near the gorge of the Litany, was one of great beauty.  Water was supplied to it in great abundance from the copious springs of Ras-el-Ain, which were received into a reservoir of an octagonal shape, sixty feet in diameter, and inclosed within walls eighteen feet in height,[434] whence they were conveyed northwards to the heart of the city by an aqueduct, whereof a part is still remaining.