Aley District
Michel Chiha was born in 1891 in a Christian family of Mekkine, in the Aley District, in the Mount Lebanon Governorate. He hails from a Chaldean family which have migrated from modern day Iraq. His father, Antoine, was a banker who has founded in 1876 the Pharaon and Chiha Bank in Beirut, in modern-day Lebanon. His mother belonged to the rich Melkite family of Beirut, the Pharaons.