Megilot Regional Council ( he, מועצה אזורית מגילות, ''Mo'atza Azorit Megilot''), also Megilot Dead Sea Regional Council, is a regional council in the

Judean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert ( he, מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, Midbar Yehuda}, both ''Desert of Judah'' or ''Judaean Desert''; ar, صحراء يهودا, Sahraa' Yahuda) is a desert in Palestine and Israel that lies east of Jerusal ...

of the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, near the western shores of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

. It covers six

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

s. With only about 1,400 residents, it is

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

's smallest regional council.Population Summary Tables 2005
Central Bureau of Statistics Its municipal offices are located in Vered Yeriho.

Etymology

The name "Megilot" means scrolls. It refers to the fact that the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the nor ...

were discovered in

Qumran Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...

, which lies within the council's governing area, near

Kalya Kalya ( he, קַלְיָה) is an Israeli settlement organized as a kibbutz in the West Bank. It was originally established in 1929 but was occupied and destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948; it was later rebuilt in 1968 after the Six-Day War. L ...

Communities

There are six communities in the council: four

kibbutzim A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming ha ...

, one

moshav A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 an ...

, and one other community.

Kibbutzim

Almog Almog ( he, אַלְמוֹג, ''lit.'' Coral) is an Israeli settlement and a kibbutz near the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley in the West Bank. It is under the jurisdiction of the Megilot Regional Council. In its ...

Beit HaArava Beit HaArava ( he, בֵּית הָעֲרָבָה, lit. ''House of the Arava'') is an Israeli settlement and kibbutz in the West Bank. Located near the Dead Sea and Jericho at the eponymous Beit HaArava Junction, the intersection of Highway 1 an ...

Mitzpe Shalem Mitzpe Shalem ( he, מִצְפֵּה שָׁלֵם, , Shalem Lookout) is an Israeli settlement and former kibbutz in the eastern West Bank. Located near Highway 90 about north of Ein Gedi and north of the Green Line about 1 km from the wes ...

Moshav

* Vered Yeriho

Other community

Ovnat Ovnat ( he, אָבְנַת) is a small Israeli settlement in the West Bank on the western shore of the Dead Sea, about south of Kalya and north of Mitzpe Shalem. It falls under the jurisdiction of Megilot Regional Council. In it had a populati ...

References

External links

Megilot Regional Council homepage (Hebrew)
{{coord, 31, 49, 34.17, N, 35, 25, 56.52, E, display=title, type:adm1st_region:IL Israeli regional councils in the West Bank Judaean Desert