Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a very old city on hills.

Its oldest part is called the Old City. A strong stone wall goes all the way around it. Inside are narrow streets, markets and very old buildings. Even the new buildings are covered in pale stone.

Jerusalem stands on hills in the Middle East, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. People have lived in its oldest part for almost 5,000 years. About 1.05 million people lived in the city in 2024.

At its heart is the Old City, a walled area only about one square kilometer in size, from which the whole city grew. Its walls were built in 1538 to 1540. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, Jerusalem is a holy city, a place of pilgrimage and prayer. Outside the walls, Jerusalem is a modern city of streets, schools, shops, offices and cafés.

Jerusalem stands on hills at about 785 m, on the watershed between the rainy Judaean Hills and the dry Judaean Desert. At the center of the modern municipality, which covers 126 km², lies the Old City, a walled medieval enclosure of roughly one square kilometer, believed to have been inhabited continuously for almost 5,000 years. The city had about 1.05 million residents in 2024.

Britannica describes Jerusalem as central to the spiritual and emotional life of three faiths: for Jews the focus of age-old yearnings, for Christians the scene of Jesus' last days, and for Muslims a city revered as the third holiest place on earth. In 1981 UNESCO inscribed the Old City and its Walls, counting 220 historic monuments. A city ordinance from the British period, still in force, requires every building to be faced in stone, which gives the whole city its pale color.

The Old City has many famous places.

The Western Wall is a place where Jews come to pray. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is an important church for Christians. Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock are important places for Muslims.

A huge raised stone platform dominates the Old City. Jews call it the Temple Mount, because the ancient Jewish Temples stood there. Muslims call it al-Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. On top stand the Dome of the Rock, with its shining gold dome, completed in 691 or 692, and the silver-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque, from the early 700s.

Below, the Western Wall, part of the old supporting walls of the platform, is Judaism's most important place of prayer. A short walk away stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Christians honor as the place where Jesus was crucified and buried.

The Old City is a walled quadrilateral about 900 m on each side, dominated by the raised platform known in Hebrew as Har Ha-Bayit, the Temple Mount, site of the First and Second Temples, and in Arabic as al-Haram al-Sharif. Its two main buildings are Islamic: the gold-capped Dome of the Rock, completed in 691–92 under the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, built in the early 8th century. Parts of the platform's supporting walls survive on three sides; during the centuries when Jews were excluded from the Mount, the Western Wall became Judaism's holiest shrine.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands on the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. The first church, the Anastasis, followed Constantine's support for Christianity in the 4th century; the present church, consecrated in 1149 under the Crusaders, combines Byzantine and Romanesque styles, and the major denominations share it under an 1852 Ottoman rule known as the status quo. Seven gates pierce Süleyman's walls; the Jaffa and Damascus gates are the main entrances, and the Golden Gate stays sealed.

Summers in Jerusalem are warm and dry. Winters are cool and rainy.

Some winters it snows a little, and some winters not at all. In spring, wildflowers cover the hills. Lots of birds live in the city.

Jerusalem has warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. In January, days reach about 13 °C and nights fall to about 7 °C. In August, days reach about 30 °C and nights stay near 20 °C. About 540 millimeters of rain fall in a year, almost all of it between October and May. Snow is usually light, and some years it does not snow at all.

In spring and autumn a hot, dry wind from the desert sometimes blows in. People call it sharav in Hebrew and khamsin in Arabic. In spring, masses of wildflowers bloom on the hillsides, and about 70 kinds of birds live in the city all year.

Britannica classes Jerusalem's climate as mixed subtropical semiarid, with warm dry summers and cool rainy winters. Long-term averages published by the World Meteorological Organization give daily highs of about 13 °C and lows of about 7 °C in January, and about 30 °C and 20 °C in August, with about 540 mm of rain a year and almost none from June to September. Snow is generally light and absent in some years. The hot, dry desert wind called sharav in Hebrew or khamsin in Arabic (from the word for fifty, for the days a year it is said to blow) is fairly common in spring and autumn. In summer the sun climbs to about 80° above the horizon, so exposure is intense.

Lying between Mediterranean hills and desert, the city has both Mediterranean and Irano-Turanian vegetation, with as many as 1,000 plant species on its limestone soils. Its birdlife is exceptionally rich: 70 resident species and about 150 winter visitors, from hooded crows, jays and swifts nesting in old walls to large flocks of white storks passing overhead. To the east, the land falls away toward the Dead Sea.

Many different people live in Jerusalem.

You can hear Hebrew, Arabic, English and other languages in the streets. Church bells ring, and calls to prayer sound from mosques. Families shop in busy markets.

Jerusalem is home to many communities. The Old City has four quarters, called the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters. In the streets you hear Hebrew, Arabic, English and many other languages, along with church bells, calls to prayer from minarets and prayers at the Western Wall.

Many visitors are pilgrims, and the city is busiest at religious festivals such as Passover, Christmas and Easter. Jerusalem has big museums too. One of them keeps some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, very old writings found in caves near the Dead Sea, and the Hebrew University opened in 1925.

Britannica describes a diverse, cosmopolitan city, above all in the Old City with its Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters, a layout fixed in the Mamluk period. About two-thirds of residents are Jewish and most of the rest Arab, nearly all of them Sunni Muslims; Christians are the smallest but most varied group, some 15,000 people, about four-fifths of them Arab. Three Eastern Orthodox patriarchs are based in the city. Schools teach mostly in Hebrew in Jewish schools and Arabic in Arab schools, with English as the commonest second language.

Government, public services and tourism, much of it pilgrimage around the Jewish High Holidays, Passover, Christmas and Easter, are the main sources of work; heavy industry has been discouraged to protect the city's character. Cultural institutions include the Hebrew University (opened 1925), a large museum of art and archaeology (1965) that shows several of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum (1938) in East Jerusalem and an Islamic Museum on al-Haram al-Sharif.