Editing Kingdom of Jerusalem (section)

== Geographic boundaries ==
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At first the kingdom was little more than a loose collection of towns and cities captured during the [[First Crusade]], but at its height in the mid-12th century, the kingdom encompassed roughly the territory of<!--Do not change:START--> modern-day [[Israel]], [[Palestine]],<!--Do not change:END--> and the southern half of [[Lebanon]], including [[Beirut]]. From the [[Mediterranean Sea]], the kingdom extended in a thin strip of land from [[Beirut]] in the north to the [[Sinai Desert]] in the south; into modern [[Jordan]] and [[Syria]] in the east, and towards [[Egypt]] in the west. Three other [[Crusader states]] founded during and after the First Crusade were located further north: the [[County of Edessa]] (1097–1144), the [[Principality of Antioch]] (1098–1268), and the [[County of Tripoli]] (1109–1289). While all three were independent, they were closely tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of [[Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia|Armenian Cilicia]] and the [[Byzantine Empire]], with which Jerusalem had a close relationship in the twelfth century. Further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the [[Abbasid]] caliph in [[Baghdad]]. The kingdom was ruled by King Aimery of Lusignan (1197–1205), the [[Kingdom of Cyprus|King of Cyprus]], another crusader state founded during the Third Crusade. Dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon increasingly dominated by the [[Italian city-states]] of [[Republic of Venice|Venice]] and [[Republic of Genoa|Genoa]]. The [[Holy Roman Emperor]], [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] (reigned 1220–1250), had ambitions in the Crusader state, claiming the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked [[War of the Lombards|a civil war]] (1228–1243) among the kingdom's nobility. The kingdom became little more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the [[Ayyubid]] and [[Mamluk]] dynasties in Egypt, as well as the [[Khwarazmian dynasty|Khwarezmian]] and [[Mongol]] invaders. As a relatively minor kingdom, it received little financial or military support from Europe; despite numerous small expeditions, Europeans generally proved unwilling to undertake an expensive journey to the east for an apparently losing cause. The Mamluk sultans [[Baibars]] (reigned 1260–1277) and [[al-Ashraf Khalil]] (reigned 1290–1293) eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, culminating in the [[Siege of Acre (1291)|destruction of Acre]] in 1291.