Zahlé (Arabic: زَحْلة) is a city in eastern Lebanon, and the capital and largest city of Beqaa Governorate, Lebanon. With around 150,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Lebanon after Beirut and Tripoli and the fourth-largest taking the whole urban area (the Jounieh urban area is larger).

Zahlé is located 55 km (34 mi) east of the capital Beirut, close to the Beirut-Damascus road, and lies at the junction of Mount Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, at a mean elevation of 1,000 m. Established in the 18th century by Christians, Zahlé maintains its predominantly Greek Catholic character. The city has historically enjoyed convenient accessibility via road and rail, leveraging its strategic location as a trade hub.

Zahlé is known as the "Bride of the Beqaa" and "the Neighbor of the Gorge" for its geographical location and attractiveness, but also as "the City of Wine and Poetry". It is famous throughout Lebanon and the region for its pleasant climate, numerous riverside restaurants and quality arak. Its inhabitants are predominantly Melkite Greek Catholic and are known in Arabic as Zahlawi.

The source of the city's name is unclear, some historian relate it to the ancient Roman god of fertility - Zohal. Evidence of Roman presence are the ruins found. Others claim the derives from the occasional landslides that take place on deforested hills around the town are probably at the origin of the name.

There has been human activity in the area for at least five thousand years. In the 18th century, Zahlé was a small village of some 200 houses. Its relative geographic isolation from the local centres of power in Mount Lebanon and Syria caused the village not to have any significant allies in the region to fall back on in case of conflicts or attacks. Zahlé was burned in 1777 and 1791.

Tradition holds that many Christians migrated from the Baalbek region in the 18th century to the newer, more secure town of Zahlé on account of the Harfush dynasty's oppression and rapacity, but more critical studies have questioned that interpretation by pointing out that the dynasty was closely allied to the Orthodox Ma'luf family of Zahlé (where Mustafa Harfush took refuge some years later) and showing that depredations from various quarters as well as Zahlé's growing commercial attractiveness accounted for Baalbek's decline in the 18th century. What repression there was did not always target the Christian community per se. The Shiite 'Usayran family, for example, is also said to have left Baalbek then to avoid expropriation by the Harfushes and established itself as one of the premier commercial households of Sidon and later even served as consuls of Iran.

At the end of the 18th century, Zahlé had one thousand inhabitants and two hundred houses. By 1820, Zahlé's population had grown to 5,000. By 1850 it was 7,000 to 8,000 and the town had become the commercial centre for the Beka'a and main depot for the local grain harvest. Some of the factors for the expansion included the Egyptian Occupation (1831–41), which lead to the opening of the country to European trade, the Crimean War which had caused grain shortages in Europe and the expansion of silk production in Mount Lebanon.

Besides controlling the grain trade, Zahlé became a centre for livestock from the region of Syria and produced leather, woven and dyed goods, trading with Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut. By the 1860's and 1870's the local merchants were prosperous but were still dependent on banks in Beirut for credit for their transactions.