Facts and figures
The area of the Old Town is about 900 dunums (thousand meters), which is 0.71% of the total area of the city in its western part occupied in 1948, and the Eastern occupied in 1967.
If Israel completes its plan to expand the borders of Jerusalem to 600 square kilometers, the area of the town will shrink to less than 0.15% of the total area.
The Old Town is surrounded by a huge wall built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the magnificent-who ruled the city between 1520 and 1566 ad - on the ruins of the ancient Roman wall. The length of the fence is 3662 meters, while its height varies between 11.6 and 12.2 meters.
On the wall there are 34 observation towers and the defense of the city, with eleven doors, seven of which are open, namely: the door of the tribes, the door of the column, the door of the watch, the new door, the door of Hebron, the door of the Moroccans and the door of the Prophet David. And four are closed.
Israeli division
The occupation municipality has started replacing the names of some alleys and roads in the Old Town with new names. It is administratively divided into eight main neighborhoods distributed among 84 subdistricts.
The Old City is one of the eight main neighborhoods, and Israel divides it into four neighborhoods with sectarian names: the Christian neighborhood, the Armenian neighborhood, the Jewish neighborhood, and the Islamic neighborhood where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, with an area of about 135 dunums.
Since 1948, the Palestinian residents of the Old City have been subjected to various forms of pressure and displacement attempts, especially by preventing them from building, which led to a decrease in the number of residents in the town or their slow growth.
At the end of the first decade of the third millennium, the population density in the Old Town reached 36.6 people per acre, which is a high percentage.
The population of the Old City in 1972 was estimated at 23,500, all of them Palestinians, except for 263 Jews. At the end of 1999, their number was estimated at 33 thousand people, including 29 thousand Palestinians, compared to less than four thousand Jewish settlers.
As for 2008, the population of the Old City reached 37 thousand, 33 thousand are Palestinians and about four thousand Jews, distributed as follows:
Islamic quarter: 26,646 inhabitants.
Christian neighborhood: 5419 inhabitants.
The Armenian Quarter has 2464 inhabitants, and this number includes the Jews who live in this neighborhood, which is 1348 people, as the population of the Armenian Quarter does not exceed 1100 people.
Jewish Quarter: 2546 people.
Shrines
The Old Town includes Islamic and Christian shrines, the most prominent of which are the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the wall of lightning, and a number of Jerusalem lanes, alleys and markets.
In 1981, UNESCO included the Old Jerusalem and its walls on the World Heritage List at the request of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and then in 1982 it was included on the Threatened Heritage list due to the serious threats that existed at the level of the preservation of the site and the political situation.
UNESCO has held several meetings, and a series of UN resolutions have been issued condemning the Judaization of Jerusalem and demanding that Israel not change its features. However, Judaization continued and reached its greatest intensity in the first decade of the third millennium by occupying the homes of Jerusalemites and establishing dozens of outposts there.
The settlement in the Old City was the Israeli pillar of pressure on the Arabs, and the confiscation of land and property and the establishment of outposts began since the occupation came in 1967.
The occupation changed many of the features of the Old City, including the names of its streets, and included changing its social, economic and political structure, in parallel with the excavations and the tunnel networks below.
The occupation imposes heavy taxes on the Palestinian residents of the Old City and prevents them from building, and the town suffers from commercial stagnation, high unemployment and overcrowding in housing.
Data sources consist of four main sources, but they vary in the ratio of comprehensiveness of documents and accuracy of information. The following table shows this.
Source of data |
Sum |
The guessing tax |
4100 |
Municipal Investigations |
1719 |
Records of Islamic endowments |
259 |
Contract records |
461 |
- The majority of the properties inside the Old City belonged to the private King, then the Christian endowment, then the atomic endowment. The following table shows the King type percentages.
The Type |
Count |
Percentage |
Islamic Waqf |
350 |
8.54% |
Atomic Waqf |
920 |
22.44% |
Ecclesiastical Waqf |
932 |
22.73% |
The guardian of enemy property |
194 |
4.73% |
Private property |
1657 |
40.41% |
Jerusalem municipality |
31 |
0.76% |
State property |
16 |
0.39% |
Summation |
4100 |
100% |
- The ecclesiastical endowment of 22.73% is classified into 15 endowments, the majority of which are Greek Orthodox at 56.4%.
- During the analysis of the properties, it turned out that the atomic endowment is distributed among many families, the largest of which is the Abu Madin endowment (Moroccans) with a percentage of 12.7%, the Khalidi family 9.5%, Al-Nimri 7% and other families.
3. By analyzing the type of use of buildings within the Old City, we found that the majority of buildings are used for commercial and residential use. This indicates that the Old Town is a commercial center, as a result of the tourist, religious and service location. The following table shows the number and percentage of users.
Usage |
Item Count |
Percentage |
Accommodation |
1606 |
39.1% |
Commercial |
2131 |
52% |
Mosque |
29 |
0.7% |
Church |
21 |
0.5% |
Public services |
53 |
1.3% |
Educational institution |
19 |
0.5% |
Land |
37 |
0.9% |
Christian Foundation |
15 |
0.4% |
Demolished |
44 |
1.1% |
Common |
145 |
3.5% |
Total |
4100 |
100% |
Joint use is when there is more than one use in the same piece or property.
- The historical construction period of the buildings was studied, noting that the registry included 3423 buildings out of 5600 buildings in the Old City, excluding the Jewish Quarter, which was confiscated in 1968. The following table shows the number and percentage of buildings (surveyed) that were built in each period.
Construction period |
Number of buildings |
Percentage |
Romanian |
7 |
%0.2 |
Crusader |
133 |
%3.9 |
Ayubi |
38 |
%1.1 |
Byzantine |
40 |
%1.2 |
Abbasi |
1 |
%0.1 |
Fatimi |
8 |
%0.2 |
Mamlouki |
510 |
%14.9 |
Early Ottoman |
966 |
%28.2 |
Late Ottoman |
1011 |
%29.5 |
Mandate |
206 |
%6 |
before 1967 |
188 |
%5.5 |
After 1967 |
315 |
%9.2 |
Total |
3423 |
100% |