PART I. GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY.
§ I. Introductory
Palestine is bounded on the north by the French sphere
of Syria, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by
Egyptian and Hejaz territory, the boundary running from
a point west of Rafa on the Mediterranean to east of Taba
at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, and then north-east. On
the east is the territory of Trans-jordania, which is included
in the area of the Palestine Mandate.
The boundary on the north was determined by the
Franco-British Convention of the 23rd December, 1920, and was delimited in 1922. It runs from the Mediterranean at Ras al-Nakura eastwards to Yarun, thence N.E. to the village of Kades, thence N.N.E. to Metullah and across the upper Jordan Valley to Banias, thence S.S.W. to Jisr Benat Yaqub, thence southwards along the Jordan to Lake Tiberias, thence along the eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias to a point almost due east of the town of Tiberias, thence S.S.E. to al-Hamneh Station on the Semakh-Deraa railway. The Huleh basin and all the Lake of Tiberias are thus within the borders of Palestine.
The area of Palestine according to the Turkish admini-
strative divisions was 13,724 square miles. The area of
Palestine under British administration, excluding Trans-
jordania, is something over 9,000 square miles, with an
2 THE HANDBOOK OF PALESTINE
estimated population (1922) of about 754,500. Of these
about 583,000 are Moslems, 84,500 Christians, and 79,300
Jews. These figures do not include the garrison.
§ 2. Geography and Scenery.
General. — ' Within the limits of a province,' it is stated in
the High Commissioner's interim report on Palestine for
1920-21, Palestine ' offers the varieties of soil and climate
of a continent. It is a country of mountain and plain, of
desert and pleasant valleys, of lake and sea-board, of barren
hills, desolate to the last degree of desolation, and of broad
stretches of deep, fruitful soil.' The most important
geographical fact in Palestine is the deep fissure of the
Jordan Valley, which divides Palestine proper so distinctly
from Trans-jordania. Palestine is, generally speaking, a
mountainous plateau which forms an extension of the
Lebanon chain and runs southwards till it loses itself in
the desert or is linked up with the mountainous part of the
Sinai Peninsula. More than two-thirds of the country lie
on the western side of the watershed, and on the western
side the slopes are gradual ; on the east they are precipitous
and are broken by valleys of great depth.
The country may be divided into three sub-regions, the
coastal plain, the mountainous plateau, and the desert.
The Coastal Plain. — The coastal plain varies considerably
in width between Acre, its northern, and Gaza, its southern
extremity. At Acre its width is about 4 miles ; farther
south, at Haifa, it widens out into the Plain of Esdraelon, which intersects the whole country ; south of Haifa, as it rounds the buttress of Mount Carmel, it is reduced to a bare 200 yards. Southwards from Athlit it expands to a width of about 20 miles, its breadth at Ascalon. The coastal plain, the northern portion of which is known as the Plain of Sharon, is on the whole extremely fertile, although covered in parts with a shallow layer of sand ; of proverbial fertility, too, is the Plain of Esdraelon, also known in Hebrew times as Armageddon.
GEOGRAPHY AND SCENERY 3
The Plateau Region. — The plateau region is divided by
the Plain of Esdraelon into two sections, the hill country
of Galilee to the north and the hill country of Samaria and
Judaea to the south.
At the southern end of the hills of Galilee rises Mount
Tabor (1,845 ft.). The range becomes continuous and
increases in height in the neighbourhood of Safed. The
highest points of the range are Jermuk (3,934 ft.) and
Jebel Heider (3,440 ft.).
The principal highlands of Samaria lie near the water-
shed between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. The
highest points are Mount. Ebal (3,077 ft.) and Mount Gerizim
(2,849 it.) near Nablus, and Tel Asur (3,318ft.) further south. On the eastern side of the watershed the most important feature is the system of deep parallel valleys running from the plain south of Nablus into the Jordan Valley.