Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and

biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

name for the central

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

of the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

. It is bordered by

Judea Judea or Judaea (; ; , ; ) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the pres ...

to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is known to the

Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...

in Arabic under two names, Samirah (, ''as-Sāmira''), and Mount Nablus (جَبَل نَابُلُس, ''Jabal Nābulus''). The first-century historian

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

set the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

as its limit to the west, and the Jordan River as its limit to the east. Its territory largely corresponds to the

allotments of the

tribe of Ephraim According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim (, ''ʾEp̄rayim,'' in Pausa, pausa: , ''ʾEp̄rāyim'') was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh, together with Ephraim, formed the Tribe of Joseph. It is one of the Ten L ...

and the western half of Manasseh. It includes most of the region of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, which was north of the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

. The border between Samaria and Judea is set at the latitude of

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

. The name "Samaria" is derived from the ancient city of Samaria, capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel. The name Samaria likely began being used for the entire kingdom not long after the town of Samaria had become Israel's capital, but it is first documented after its conquest by the

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

, which incorporated the land into the province of

Samerina Samerina ( ''Samerina'') was the province of the Neo-Assyrian Empire established following the 722 BCE Assyrian conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser V, which resulted in the dissolution of the Kingdom of Israel and annexation of Samaria into the e ...

. Samaria was used to describe the northern midsection of the land in the UN Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. It became the administrative term in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

, when the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

was defined by Israeli officials as the

Judea and Samaria Area The Judea and Samaria Area (; ) is an administrative division used by the State of Israel to refer to the entire West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, but excludes East Jerusalem (see Jerusalem Law). Its area is split int ...

, of which the entire area north of the

Jerusalem District The Jerusalem District (; ) is one of the six administrative districts of Israel. The district capital is Jerusalem and its total land area is 652 km2. The population of 1,159,900 is 66.3% Jewish and 32.1% Arab. A fifth (21%) of the Arab ...

is termed as Samaria. In 1988,

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ceded its claim of the area to the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Pale ...

(PLO). In 1994, control of Areas 'A' (full civil and security control by the

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...

) and 'B' (Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli–Palestinian security control) were transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority and the international community do not recognize the term "Samaria"; in modern times, the territory is generally known as part of the West Bank.

Etymology

According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' King Omri (ruled 880s–870s BCE) purchased the hill on which he built his new capital city of '' Shomron''. The fact that the mountain was called Shomeron when Omri bought it may indicate that the correct etymology of the name is to be found more directly in the Semitic root for "guard", hence its initial meaning would have been "watch mountain". In the earlier

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

inscriptions, Samaria is designated under the name of "Bet Ḥumri" ( "the house of Omri"); but in those of Tiglath-Pileser III (ruled 745–727 BCE) and later it is called Samirin, after its

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

name, Shamerayin.

Historical boundaries

Northern kingdom to Hellenistic period

In Nelson's Encyclopaedia (1906–1934), the Samaria region in the three centuries following the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, i.e. during the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian periods, is described as a "province" that "reached from the editerraneansea to the Jordan Valley".

Roman-period definition

The classical Roman-Jewish historian

wrote: During the first century, the boundary between Samaria and Judea passed eastward of Antipatris, along the deep valley which had Beth Rima (now Bani Zeid al-Gharbia) and Beth Laban (today's al-Lubban al-Gharbi) on its southern, Judean bank; then it passed Anuath and Borceos, identified by Charles William Wilson (1836–1905) as the ruins of 'Aina and Khirbet Berkit; and reached the Jordan Valley north of Acrabbim and Sartaba. Tall Asur also stands at that boundary.

Geography

The area known as the hills of Samaria is bounded by the Jezreel Valley(north); by the

Jordan Rift Valley The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley ( ''Bīqʿāt haYardēn'', Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr), is an elongated endorheic basin located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, Palestine. This geographic region includes the entire length o ...

(east); by the Carmel Ridge (northwest); by the Sharon plain (west); and by the

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

mountains (south). The Samarian hills are not very high, seldom reaching the height of over 800 meters. Samaria's climate is more hospitable than the climate further south. There is no clear division between the mountains of southern Samaria and northern Judea.

History

Over time, the region has been controlled by numerous different civilizations, including Canaanites,

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

, Neo-Assyrians, Babylonians,

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines,

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

, and

Ottoman Turks The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...

Israelite tribes and kingdoms

According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

captured the region known as Samaria from the

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

ites and assigned it to the Tribe of Joseph. The southern part of Samaria was then known as Mount Ephraim. After the death of

King Solomon King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...

(c. 931 BC), the northern tribes, including

Ephraim Ephraim (; , in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph ben Jacob and Asenath, as well as the adopted son of his biological grandfather Jacob, making him the progenitor of the Tribe of Ephrai ...

and Menashe, separated themselves politically from the southern tribes and established the separate Kingdom of Israel. Initially its capital was Tirzah until the time of King Omri (c. 884 BC), who built the city of

Samaria Samaria (), the Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shomron (), is used as a historical and Hebrew Bible, biblical name for the central region of the Land of Israel. It is bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The region is ...

and made it his capital. Samaria functioned as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel (the "Northern Kingdom") until its fall to the Assyrians in the 720s. Hebrew prophets condemned Samaria for its "ivory houses" and luxury palaces displaying pagan riches. The archaeological record suggests that Samaria experienced significant settlement growth in Iron Age II (from 950 BC). Archaeologists estimate that there were 400 sites, up from 300 during the previous Iron Age I ( 1200 BC onwards). The people dwelt on tells, in small villages, farms, and forts, and in the cities of Shechem, Samaria and Tirzah in northern Samaria. Zertal estimated that about 52,000 people inhabited the Manasseh Hill in northern Samaria prior to the Assyrian deportations. According to botanists, the majority of Samaria's forests were torn down during the Iron Age II, and were replaced by plantations and agricultural fields. Since then, few oak forests have grown in the region.

Assyrian period

In the 720s, the conquest of Samaria by

Shalmaneser V Shalmaneser V (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Salmānu is foremost"; Biblical Hebrew: ) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 727 BC to his deposition and death in 722 BC. Though Shalmaneser V's brief reign is poorly known from conte ...

of the

, which culminated in the three-year siege of the capital city of Samaria, saw the territory annexed as the Assyrian province of

. The siege has been tentatively dated to 725 or 724 BC, with its resolution in 722 BC, near the end of Shalmaneser's reign. The first documented mention of the province of Samerina is from the reign of Shalmaneser V's successor Sargon II. This is also the first documented instance where a name derived from "Samaria", the capital city, was used for the entire region, although it is thought likely that this practice was already in place. Following the Assyrian conquest, Sargon II claimed in Assyrian records to have deported 27,280 people to various places throughout the empire, mainly to Guzana in the Assyrian heartland, as well as to the cities of the

Medes The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...

in the eastern part of the empire (modern-day Iran). The deportations were part of a standard resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to deal with defeated enemy peoples. The resettled people were generally treated well as valued members of the empire and transported together with their families and belongings. At the same time, people from other parts of the empire were resettled in the depopulated Samerina. The resettlement is also called the Assyrian captivity in

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their Jewish peoplehood, nation, Judaism, religion, and Jewish culture, culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and H ...

and provides the basis for the narrative of the

Ten Lost Tribes The Ten Lost Tribes were those from the Twelve Tribes of Israel that were said to have been exiled from the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Kingdom of Israel after it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. They were the following ...

Babylonian and Persian periods

According to many scholars, archaeological excavations at Mount Gerizim indicate that a Samaritan temple was built there in the first half of the 5th century BCE. The date of the

schism A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...

between Samaritans and Jews is unknown. Much of the anti-Samaritan polemic in the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical texts (such as Josephus) originate from this point and on. As quoted b
Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan
an
Encyclopedia.com

Hellenistic period

During the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, Samaria was largely divided between a Hellenizing faction based around the town of Samaria and a pious faction in Shechem and surrounding rural areas, led by the High Priest. Samaria was a largely autonomous province nominally dependent on the

Seleucid Empire The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great ...

. However, the province gradually declined as the Maccabean movement and Hasmonean Judea grew stronger. The transfer of three districts of Samaria—

, Lod and Ramathaim—under the control of Judea in 145 BCE as part of an agreement between Jonathan Apphus and Demetrius II is one indication of this decline. Around 110 BCE, the decline of Hellenistic Samaria was complete, when the Jewish Hasmonean ruler

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

destroyed the cities of Samaria and Shechem, as well as the city and temple on Mount Gerizim. Only a few stone remnants of the Samaritan temple exist today.

Roman period

In 6 CE, Samaria became part of the Roman province of Iudaea, following the death of King

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

. Southern Samaria reached a peak in settlement during the early Roman period (63 BCE–70 CE), partly as a result of the Hasmonean dynasty's settlement efforts. The impact of the Jewish–Roman wars is archaeologically evident in Jewish-inhabited areas of southern Samaria, as many sites were destroyed and left abandoned for extended periods of time. After the First Jewish-Roman War, the Jewish population of the area decreased by around 50%, whereas after the

Bar Kokhba revolt The Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 AD) was a major uprising by the Jews of Judaea (Roman province), Judaea against the Roman Empire, marking the final and most devastating of the Jewish–Roman wars. Led by Simon bar Kokhba, the rebels succeeded ...

, it was completely wiped in many areas. According to Klein, the Roman authorities replaced the Jews with a population from the nearby provinces of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

, and

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. An apparent new wave of settlement growth in southern Samaria, most likely by non-Jews, can be traced back to the late Roman and Byzantine eras.

New Testament references

The

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

mentions Samaria in Luke 17:11–2, in the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, which took place on the border of Samaria and Galilee. John 4:1-26 records Jesus' encounter at Jacob's Well with the woman of Sychar, in which he declares himself to be the Messiah. In Acts 8:1, it is recorded that the early community of disciples of Jesus began to be persecuted in Jerusalem and were 'scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria'.

Philip Philip, also Phillip, is a male name derived from the Macedonian Old Koine language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominen ...

went down to the city of Samaria and preached and healed the sick there. In the time of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, ''Iudaea'' of the Romans was divided into the toparchies of Judea, Samaria, Galilee and the Paralia. Samaria occupied the centre of ''Iudaea''. (''Iudaea'' was later renamed ''Syria Palaestina'' in 135, following the

.) In the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, Samaria is called the "land of the Cuthim".

Byzantine period

Following the bloody suppression of the Samaritan Revolts (mostly in 525 CE and 555 CE) against the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

, which resulted in death, displacement, and conversion to Christianity, the Samaritan population dramatically decreased. In the central parts of Samaria, the vacuum left by departing Samaritans was filled by nomads who gradually became sedentarized. The Byzantine period is considered the peak of settlement in Samaria, as in other regions of the country. Based on historical sources and archeological data, the Manasseh Hill surveyors concluded that Samaria's population during the Byzantine period was composed of Samaritans, Christians, and a minority of Jews. The Samaritan population was mainly concentrated in the valleys of Nablus and to the north as far as

Jenin Jenin ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and is the capital of the Jenin Governorate. It is a hub for the surrounding towns. Jenin came under Israeli occupied territories, Israeli occupation in 1967, and was put under the administra ...

and Kfar Othenai; they did not settle south of the Nablus-Qalqiliya line. Christianity slowly made its way into Samaria, even after the Samaritan revolts. With the exception of Neapolis, Sebastia, and a small cluster of monasteries in central and northern Samaria, most of the population of the rural areas remained non-Christian. In southwestern Samaria, a significant concentration of churches and monasteries was discovered, with some of them built on top of citadels from the late Roman period. Magen raised the hypothesis that many of these were used by Christian pilgrims, and filled an empty space in the region whose Jewish population was wiped out in the Jewish–Roman wars.

Early Muslim, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods

Following the

Muslim conquest of the Levant The Muslim conquest of the Levant (; ), or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab–Byzantine wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and develope ...

, and throughout the early Islamic period, Samaria underwent a process of Islamization as a result of waves of conversion among the remaining Samaritan population, along with the migration of Muslims into the area.M. Levy-Rubin, "New evidence relating to the process of Islamization in Palestine in the Early Muslim Period - The Case of Samaria", in: ''Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient'', 43 (3), pp. 257–276, 2000,

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

Fattal, A. (1958). ''Le statut légal des non-Musulman en pays d'Islam'', Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, pp. 72–73. Evidence implies that a large number of Samaritans converted under

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

and Tulunid rule, as a result of droughts, earthquakes, religious persecution, high taxes, and anarchy. By the mid-

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, the Jewish writer and explorer Benjamin of Tudela estimated that only around 1,900 Samaritans remained in

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

and

Ottoman Period

During the Ottoman Period, the northern part of Samaria belonged to the Turabay Emirate (1517–1683), which encompassed also the Jezreel Valley,

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

, Beit She'an Valley, northern Jabal Nablus, Bilad al-Ruha/Ramot Menashe, and the northern part of the Sharon plain. The areas south of Jenin, including

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

itself and its hinterland up to the Yarkon River, formed a separate district called the District of Nablus.

British Mandate

During the Great War, Palestine was wrested by the armies of the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

and in the aftermath of the war it was entrusted to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

to administer as a

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

mandated territory Samaria was the name of one of the administrative districts of Palestine for part of this period. The 1947 UN partition plan called for the Arab state to consist of several parts, the largest of which was described as "the hill country of Samaria and Judea."

Jordanian period

As a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most of the territory was unilaterally incorporated as

ian-controlled territory, and was administered as part of the West Bank (west of the Jordan river).

Israeli administration

The Jordanian-held West Bank was captured and has been occupied by Israel since the 1967

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

ceded its claims in the West Bank (except for certain prerogatives in Jerusalem) to the PLO in November 1988, later confirmed by the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace of 1994. In the 1994 Oslo accords, the

was established and given responsibility for the administration over some of the territory of West Bank (Areas 'A' and 'B'). Samaria is one of several standard statistical districts utilized by the

Israel Central Bureau of Statistics The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (, ''HaLishka HaMerkazit LiStatistika''; ), abbreviated CBS, is an Israeli government office established in 1949 to carry out research and publish statistical data on all aspects of Israeli life, including ...

. "The Israeli CBS also collects statistics on the rest of the West Bank and the Gaza District. It has produced various basic statistical series on the territories, dealing with population, employment, wages, external trade, national accounts, and various other topics." The Palestinian Authority however use

, Tulkarm,

Qalqilya Qalqilya or Qalqiliya () is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, which serves as the administrative center of the Qalqilya Governorate. The city had a population of 51,683 in 2017. Qalqilya is surrounded by the Israeli West Bank barrier, Israeli We ...

, Salfit,

and Tubas governorates as administrative centers for the same region. The Shomron Regional Council is the local municipal government that administers the smaller Israeli towns ( settlements) throughout the area. The council is a member of the network of regional municipalities spread throughout Israel. Elections for the head of the council are held every five years by Israel's ministry of interior, all residents over age 17 are eligible to vote. In special elections held in August 2015

Yossi Dagan Yossi Dagan () is an Israeli activist and politician who has been the head of the Shomron Regional Council since August 2015. Dagan grew up in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak in the Pardes Katz neighborhood. When he was in the tenth grade, he mo ...

was elected as head of the Shomron Regional Council. Shomron map

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered by most in the international community to be illegal under international law, but others including the United States and Israeli governments dispute this. In September 2016, the Town Board of the American Town of Hempstead in the State of New York, led by Councilman Bruce Blakeman entered into a partnership agreement with the Shomron Regional Council, led by

, as part of an anti- Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

Archaeological sites

Ancient city of Samaria/Sebaste

The ancient site of

-Sebaste covers the hillside overlooking the West Bank village of Sebastia on the eastern slope of the hill. Remains have been found from the

ite,

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

, Roman (including

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus () of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus'' (τῆς με ...

) and

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

periods. Archaeological finds from Roman-era Sebaste, a site that was rebuilt and renamed by Herod the Great in 30 BC, include a colonnaded street, a temple-lined acropolis, and a lower city, where

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

is believed to have been buried. The Harvard excavation of Samaria, which began in 1908, was headed by Egyptologist George Andrew Reisner. The findings included Hebrew, Aramaic, cuneiform and Greek inscriptions, as well as pottery remains, coins, sculpture, figurines, scarabs and seals, faience, amulets, beads and glass. The joint British-American-Hebrew University excavation continued under John Winter Crowfoot in 1931–35, during which time some of the chronology issues were resolved. The round towers lining the acropolis were found to be Hellenistic, the street of columns was dated to the 3–4th century, and 70 inscribed potsherds were dated to the early 8th century. In 1908–1935, remains of luxury furniture made of wood and ivory were discovered in Samaria, representing the Levant's most important collection of ivory carvings from the early first millennium BC. Despite theories of their

n origin, some of the letters serving as fitter's marks are in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. As of 1999 three series of coins have been found that confirm Sinuballat was a governor of Samaria. Sinuballat is best known as an adversary of Nehemiah from the

Book of Nehemiah The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Hebrew prophet and high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the ...

where he is said to have sided with Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian. All three coins feature a warship on the front, likely derived from earlier Sidonian coins. The reverse side depicts the Persian King in his kandys robe facing down a

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

that is standing on its hind legs.

Other ancient sites

* The Bull Site, an Iron I cult site *

Tel Dothan Dothan (Hebrew language, Hebrew: ) (also Dotan) was a location mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible. It has been identified with Tel Dothan (), also known as Tel al-Hafireh, located adjacent to the Palestinian people, Palestinian town of Bir al-Bas ...

near

, identified with biblical Dothan * Khirbet Kheibar, in Meithalun, ancient tell which was inhabited from the Middle Bronze Age to Medieval times * Khirbet Kurkush, site of an ancient Samaritan or Jewish settlement with a notable necropolis * Khirbet Samara, site of a notable ancient Samaritan synagogue *

area: **

Mount Gerizim Mount Gerizim ( ; ; ; , or ) is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the State of Palestine, Palestinian city of Nablus and the biblical city of Shechem. It forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the nor ...

, the religious epicenter of

Samaritanism Samaritanism (; ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Samaritan people, who originate from the Hebrews and Israelites and began to emerge as a relative ...

, site of an ancient Samaritan temple, and Samaritan and Byzantine ruins ** Mount Ebal site, Iron Age remains on Mount Ebal, seen by many scholars as an early Israelite cultic site ** Tell Balata, identified as biblical Shechem * Khirbet Seilun/Tel Shiloh, identified with

Shiloh (biblical city) Shiloh (; ) was an ancient city and sanctuary in History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel located in the modern-day West Bank. According to the Hebrew Bible, Shiloh was one of the main centers of Israelite worship during the pre-monar ...

* Tell el-Far'ah (North), identified with biblical Tirzah, the third capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel.

Samaritans

The

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

(Hebrew: Shomronim) are an ethnoreligious group named after and descended from ancient Semitic inhabitants of Samaria, since the Assyrian exile of the Israelites, according to and first-century historian

. Religiously, the Samaritans are adherents of

, an Abrahamic religion closely related to

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

. Based on the Samaritan Torah, Samaritans claim their worship is the true religion of the ancient Israelites prior to the Babylonian exile, preserved by those who remained behind. Their temple was built at

in the middle of the 5th century BCE, and was destroyed under the Hasmonean king

in 110 BCE, although their descendants still worship among its ruins. The antagonism between Samaritans and Jews is important in understanding the Bible's

stories of the " Samaritan woman at the well" and " Parable of the Good Samaritan". The modern Samaritans, however, see themselves as co-equals in inheritance to the Israelite lineage through Torah, as do the Jews, and are not antagonistic to Jews in modern times.

Flora and fauna

The geographical region lies on the Irano-Turanian border, and its slopes support vegetation grown in that broad region. Typical for this region are ''maquis'', the dense scrub vegetation consisting of hardy evergreen shrubs and small trees, characteristic of coastal regions in the Mediterranean and which, in this area, are found on the cliffs' step-crevices. The kermes oak ('' Quercus coccifera'') is common. In contrast to the Galilee and the

Judean Mountains The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills (, or ,) are a mountain range in the West Bank and Israel where Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and several other biblical sites are located. The mountains reach a height of . The Judean Mountains can be div ...

, there are very few remnants of natural vegetation in the Samaria Mountains. Large areas in the south and west of Samaria and in the valleys have been cultivated for many generations as agricultural land and are planted mainly with

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

, fig,

almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...

and

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punica, Punicoideae, that grows between tall. Rich in symbolic and mythological associations in many cultures, it is thought to have o ...

trees; the areas in the valleys are used for arable land or vegetable crops. Only on the edges of the fields and in places that have been regenerated and where damaging the plant-life is prohibited by law have remnants of natural vegetation been preserved. The wildlife of Samaria, as in other regions of the country, consists of populations that invaded the general area at different times and adapted to the conditions prevailing in the area. Hunting (with the introduction of modern firearms in the 20th-century) and extensive farming have been the principal causes for a decline in the area's natural wildlife. The animals that dominate the general area have their origins in the Mediterranean basin and in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, such as the

badger Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by the ...

, the

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

, the

red fox The red fox (''Vulpes vulpes'') is the largest of the true foxes and one of the most widely distributed members of the order Carnivora, being present across the entire Northern Hemisphere including most of North America, Europe and Asia, plus ...

, the

hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are 17 species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduction. The ...

, the field mouse, and the mole (among mammals).

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * {{Authority control Geography of Palestine Geography of Israel Hebrew Bible regions Historical regions in Israel Historical regions in Palestine Land of Israel Middle East New Testament regions Samaritan culture and history Former kingdoms

Etymology

Historical boundaries

Northern kingdom to Hellenistic period

Roman-period definition

Geography

History

Israelite tribes and kingdoms

Assyrian period

Babylonian and Persian periods

Hellenistic period

Roman period

New Testament references

Byzantine period

Early Muslim, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods

Ottoman Period

British Mandate

Jordanian period

Israeli administration

Archaeological sites

Ancient city of Samaria/Sebaste

Other ancient sites

Samaritans

Flora and fauna

See also

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links