The Palestine grid was the

geographic coordinate system The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the vari ...

used by the

Survey Department of Palestine The Survey of Palestine was the government department responsible for the survey and mapping of Palestine during the British mandate period. The survey department was established in 1920 in Jaffa, and moved to the outskirts of Tel Aviv in 1 ...

. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922. The projection used was the Cassini-Soldner projection. The central

meridian Meridian or a meridian line (from Latin ''meridies'' via Old French ''meridiane'', meaning “midday”) may refer to Science * Meridian (astronomy), imaginary circle in a plane perpendicular to the planes of the celestial equator and horizon * ...

(the line of longitude along which there is no local distortion) was chosen as that passing through a marker on the hill of

Mar Elias Monastery Mar Elias Monastery ( he, מנזר אליהו הקדוש, ar, دير مار إلياس, Deir Mar Elias) is a Greek Orthodox monastery in south Jerusalem, on a hill overlooking Bethlehem and Herodium. History According to Christian tradition, ...

south of Jerusalem. The false origin (zero point) of the grid was placed 100 km to the south and west of the Ali el-Muntar hill that overlooks

Gaza Gaza may refer to: Places Palestine * Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea ** Gaza City, a city in the Gaza Strip ** Gaza Governorate, a governorate in the Gaza Strip Lebanon * Ghazzeh, a village in ...

city. The unit length for the grid was the kilometre; the British units were not even considered. At the time the grid was established, there was no intention of mapping the lower reaches of the

Negev Desert The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...

, but this did not remain true. Those southern regions having a negative north-south coordinate then became a source of confusion, which was solved by adding 1000 to the northern coordinate in that case. For some military purposes, 1000 was added to the north-south coordinates of all locations, so that they then ranged uniformly from about 900 to about 1300. Palestine and Levant grids

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, a Military Palestine Grid was used that was similar to the Palestine Grid but used the

transverse Mercator The transverse Mercator map projection (TM, TMP) is an adaptation of the standard Mercator projection. The transverse version is widely used in national and international mapping systems around the world, including the Universal Transverse Merc ...

projection. The difference between the two projections was only a few metres. After the establishment of the State of Israel, the Palestine grid continued to be used under the name of the Israel Grid or the Israeli Cassini Soldner (ICS) grid, now called the "Old Israeli Grid", with 1000km added to the northing component to make the north-south range continuous. It was replaced by the Israeli Transverse Mercator grid in 1994. The Palestine grid is still commonly used to specify locations in the historical and archaeological literature.

Specifying locations

The basic way of specifying a location on the Palestine grid is to write the east-west coordinate followed by the north-south coordinate using 3 digits each. For example, the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock ( ar, قبة الصخرة, Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the ''al-Haram al-Sharif'' or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initia ...

is at 172132. This specifies the location within one kilometre. If more precision is required, extra digits can be added to each coordinate; for example, 17241317 gives the Dome of the Rock to within 100 metres. Many authors separate the two coordinates with punctuation for readability purposes, for example 172-132 or 172/132.For example, the location of Khirbet esh Sheik Mohammed is given as 1417.1984 in

References

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Specifying locations

References

Further reading