Burj camp was built in 1950 on 37.500 m2 of land with a starting number of 7.189 people. These people have moved to this camp in 1950 and 1951 after their displacement from their homeland, Palestine, in 1948. More refugees started inhabiting the camp after their displacement from other camps and countries (such as Jordan); the number of residents there today is 16.923. The UNRWA did not recognize the new comers and they were not granted the status of refugees. This high density of people resulted in a disastrous architecture of the houses that are almost wall-to-wall. The problem was also aggravated by a Lebanese law that prohibited the building of more than one story-high houses. Each house on average contains one family of 5-6 members. The camp is supplied with electric power distributed through cables by the "popular committee" which is a committee that acts as a mini-municipality in the camp. The camp has 14 wells of non-potable water. Garbage disposal is an important problem facing the camps. The interior of the Burj camp is relatively clean, but there is considerable piling of waste at the exits of the camp.

Though the infrastructure seems satisfactory to other refugee camps in different parts of the 3rd world, the Palestinian refugees are suffering from much injustice in the social economic, educational and medical sectors.

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