An 1890 map of Palestine as described by medieval Arab geographers, with Jund Filastin administrative area

Palestine (Arabic: فلسطين‎ Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn; Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina) is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} The region is also known as the Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ־ישראל Eretz-Yisra'el),^[7] the Holy Land and the Southern Levant,^[8] and historically has been known by other names including Canaan, Zion, Syria Palaestina, Southern Syria, Jund Filastin and Outremer.

The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were first defined in modern times by the Franco-British boundary agreement (1920) and the Transjordan memorandum of 16 September 1922, during the mandate period. Today, the region comprises the country of Israel and the Palestinian territories.^[9]

Palestine is also used to refer to the State of Palestine which, since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, has referred to a state in the Palestinian territories on 22% of "historical Palestine".^[10] The State of Palestine is recognized today by approximately two-thirds of the world's countries, although this status is not recognized by the United Nations, Israel and major Western nations such as the United States.

Etymology[link]

The term Peleset (transliterated from hieroglyphs as P-r-s-t) is found in numerous Egyptian documents referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. The first mention is thought to be in texts of the temple at Medinet Habu which record a people called the Peleset among the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign.^[11] The Assyrians called the same region Palashtu or Pilistu, beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c.800 BCE through to emperor Sargon II in his Annals approximately a century later.^[12][13][1] Neither the Egyptian or Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term.

The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece.^[14] Herodotus wrote of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistinê" in The Histories, the first historical work clearly defining the region, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20]} Approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition in Meteorology, writing "Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them," understood by scholars to be a reference to the Dead Sea.^[21] Later writers such as Polemon and Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Dio Chrysostom, Statius, Plutarch as well as Roman Judean writers Philo of Alexandria and Josephus.^[22] Other writers, such as Strabo, a prominent Roman-era geographer (although he wrote in Greek), referred to the region as Coele-Syria around 10-20 CE.^[23][24] The term was first used to denote an official province in c.135 CE, when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, combined Iudaea Province with Galilee and other surrounding cities such as Ashkelon to form "Syria Palaestina" (Syria Palaestina), which some scholars state was in order to complete the dissociation with Judaea.^[25][26]

The Hebrew name Peleshet (פלשת Pəlésheth)- usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible more than 250 times. The Greek word Palaistinē (Παλαιστίνη, "Palaistine") is generally accepted to be a translation of the Semitic name for Philistia; however another term – Land of Philistieim (Γη των Φυλιστιειμ, transliteration from Hebrew) – was used in the Septuagint, the second century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, to refer to Philistia.^[27] In the Torah / Pentateuch the term Philistia is used 10 times and its boundaries are undefined. The later Historical books (see Deuteronomistic history) include most of the biblical references, almost 200 of which are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel, where the term is used to denote the southern coastal region to the west of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.^{[28][12][13][22]}

During the Byzantine period, the entire region (Syria Palestine, Samaria, and the Galilee) was named Palaestina, subdivided into provinces Palaestina I and II.^[29] The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutaris, sometimes called Palaestina III.^[29] The Arabic word for Palestine is فلسطين (commonly transcribed in English as Filistin, Filastin, or Falastin).^[30] Moshe Sharon writes that when the Arabs took over Greater Syria in the 7th century, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration before them, generally continued to be used. Hence, he traces the emergence of the Arabic form Filastin to this adoption, with Arabic inflection, of Roman and Hebrew (Semitic) names.^[12] Jacob Lassner and Selwyn Ilan Troen offer a different view, writing that Jund Filastin, the full name for the administrative province under the rule of the Arab caliphates, was traced by Muslim geographers back to the Philistines of the Bible.^[31] The use of the name "Palestine" in English became more common after the European renaissance.^[32] It was officially revived by the British after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and applied to the territory that was placed under The Palestine Mandate.

Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land include Canaan, Greater Israel, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea Province, Judea,^[33] Israel, "Israel HaShlema", Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael or Ha'aretz), Zion, Retenu (Ancient Egyptian), Southern Syria, and Syria Palestina.

History[link]

Overview[link]

Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region has been controlled by numerous different peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Sunni Arab Caliphate, the Shia Fatimid Caliphate, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Ottomans, the British and modern Israelis and Palestinians. Modern archaeologists and historians of the region refer to their field of study as Syro-Palestinian archaeology.

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Ancient period[link]

A fanciful 1759 map entitled The Holy Land or Palestine. It supposes the depiction in the Holy Scriptures of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel and the locations of the 12 tribes as per Tobias Conrad Lotter, a geographer from Augsburg, Germany

The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. During the Bronze Age, independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550-1400 BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy (Canaan) during the wider Bronze Age collapse. The Philistines arrived and mingled with the local population, and according to Biblical tradition, the United Kingdom of Israel was established in 1020 BCE and split within a century to form the northern Kingdom of Israel, and the southern Kingdom of Judah. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c.740 BCE, which was itself replaced by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in c.627 BCE. According to the bible, a war with Egypt culminated in 586 BCE when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the local leaders of the region of Judea were deported to Babylonia. In 539 BCE, the Babylonian empire was replaced by the Achaemenid Empire. According to the bible and implications from the Cyrus Cylinder, the exiled population of Judea was allowed to return to Jerusalem.

Classical antiquity[link]

5th century CE: Byzantine provinces of Palaestina I (Philistia, Judea and Samaria) and Palaestina II (Galilee and Perea)

In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the region, and the region changed hands numerous times during the wars of the Diadochi. ultimately joining the Seleucid Empire between 219-200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of certain regions including the minor Hasmonean principality in the Judean Mountains. From 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, creating a Judean-Samaritan-Idumaean-Ituraean-Galilean alliance. The Judean (Jewish, see Ioudaioi) control over the wider region resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea, a term which had previously only referred to the smaller region of the Judean Mountains. Between 73-63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence in to the region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering of Judea in 63 BCE, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. The three year Ministry of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, is estimated to have occurred from 28-30 CE, although the historicity of Jesus is disputed by scholars. In 70 CE, Titus sacked Jerusalem, resulting in the dispersal of the city's Jews and Christians to Yavne and Pella. In 132 CE, Hadrian joined the province of Iudaea with Galilee to form new province of Syria Palaestina, and Jerusalem was renamed "Aelia Capitolina". Between 259-272, the region fell under the rule of Odaenathus as King of the Palmyrene Empire. Following the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324), the Christianization of the Roman Empire began, and in 326, Constantine's mother Saint Helena visited Jerusalem and began the construction of churches and shrines. Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting numerous monks and religious scholars. The Samaritan Revolts during this period caused their near extinction. In 614 CE, Palestine was annexed by another Persian dynasty; the Sassanids, until returning to Byzantine control in 628 CE.^[34]

Middle Ages[link]

Tower of Ramla, constructed in 1318

Palestine was conquered by the Islamic Empire, beginning in 634 CE. In 636 CE, the Battle of Yarmouk during the Muslim conquest of Syria symbolized the complete Muslim takeover of the region, which was regarded as Bilad a-Sham (Greater Syria). In 661 CE, with the assassination of Ali, Muawiyah I became the uncontested Caliph of the Islamic World after being crowned in Jerusalem. In 691, the Dome of the Rock became the world's first great work of Islamic architecture.^{[citation needed]} The Umayyad were replaced by the Abbasids in 750. From 878 Palestine was ruled from Egypt by semi-autonomous rulers for almost a century, beginning with Ahmad ibn Tulun, and ending with the Ikhshidid rulers who were both buried in Jerusalem.^{[citation needed]} The Fatimids conquered the region in 969. In 1073 Palestine was captured by the Great Seljuq Empire, only to be recaptured by the Fatimids in 1098, who then lost the region to the Crusaders in 1099. Their control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until defeat by Saladin's forces in 1187, after which most of Palestine was controlled by the Ayyubids. A rump crusader state in the northern coastal cities survived for another century, but, despite seven further crusades the crusaders were no longer a significant power in the region. The Fourth Crusade led directly to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, dramatically reducing Christian influence throughout the region.

The Mamluk Sultanate was indirectly created in Egypt as a result of the Seventh Crusade. The Mongol Empire reached Palestine for the first time in 1260, beginning with the Mongol raids into Palestine under Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa and reaching an apex at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut. In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Turks in a battle for control over western Asia and the Ottomans captured Palestine in 1516.

Modern period[link]

1947 UN Partition Plan for State of Palestine, founded within the greater Palestine region

The new era in Palestine. The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, H.B.M. High Commissioner with Col. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal Salmond and Sir Wyndham Deedes, 1920.

In 1832 Palestine was conquered by Muhammad Ali's Egypt, but in 1840 Britain intervened and returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans in return for further capitulations. The end of the 19th century saw the beginning of Zionist immigration and the Revival of the Hebrew language. The movement was publicly supported by Great Britain during World War I with the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The British captured Jerusalem a month later, and were formally awarded a mandate in 1922. The non-Jewish Palestinians revolted in 1920, 1929 and 1936. In 1947, following World War II and the Holocaust, the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition the territory into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jewish leadership accepted the proposal but the Arab Higher Committee rejected it; a civil war began immediately, and Israel was declared in 1948. The 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes were unable to return following the Lausanne Conference, 1949. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of the Mandate territory, Jordan captured the region today known as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was captured by Egypt. In the course of the Six Day War in June 1967, Israel captured the rest of Mandate Palestine from Jordan and Egypt, and began a policy of Israeli settlements. From 1987 to 1993, the First Palestinian Intifada against Israel took place, ending with the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. In 2000, the Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada began, and Israel built a security barrier. Following Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004, it withdrew all settlers and most of the military presence from the Gaza strip, but maintained control of the air space and coast.

Boundaries[link]

The boundaries of Palestine have varied throughout history.^[35][36] The Jordan Rift Valley (comprising Wadi Arabah, the Dead Sea and River Jordan) has at times formed a political and administrative frontier, even within empires that have controlled both territories. At other times, such as during certain periods during the Hasmonean and Crusader states for example, as well as during the biblical period, territories on both sides of the river formed part of the same administrative unit. During the Arab Caliphate period, parts of southern Lebanon and the northern highland areas of Palestine and Jordan were administered as Jund al-Urdun, while the southern parts of the latter two formed part of Jund Dimashq, which during the ninth century was attached to the administrative unit of Jund Filasteen (Arabic: جند فلسطين‎).^[37]

The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to the coast north of Mount Carmel. Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palestine from the Phoenicians, he refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt.^[38] Pliny, writing in Latin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.^[39]

Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II, also known as Palaestina Prima, "First Palestine", and Palaestina Secunda, "Second Palestine"), have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Under Arab rule, Filastin (or Jund Filastin) was used administratively to refer to what was under the Byzantines Palaestina Secunda (comprising Judaea and Samaria), while Palaestina Prima (comprising the Galilee region) was renamed Urdunn ("Jordan" or Jund al-Urdunn).^[12]

Nineteenth century sources refer to Palestine as extending from the sea to the caravan route, presumably the Hejaz-Damascus route east of the Jordan River valley. Others refer to it as extending from the sea to the desert. Prior to the Allied Powers victory in World War I and the Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, which created the British mandate in the Levant, most of the northern area of what is today Jordan formed part of the Ottoman Vilayet of Damascus (Syria), while the southern part of Jordan was part of the Vilayet of Hejaz. What later became part of British Mandate Palestine was in Ottoman times divided between the Vilayet of Beirut (Lebanon) and the Sanjak of Jerusalem.^[40]

The Zionist Organization provided their definition concerning the boundaries of Palestine in a statement to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; it also includes a statement about the importance of water resources that the designated area includes.^[41][42] On the basis of a League of Nations mandate, the British administered Palestine after World War I, promising to establish a Jewish homeland therein.^[43] The original Mandate Palestine included what is now Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan), and Transjordan (the present kingdom of Jordan), although the latter was disattached by an administrative decision of the British in 1922.^[44] To the Palestinian people who view Palestine as their homeland, its boundaries are those of Mandate Palestine excluding the Transjordan, as described in the Palestinian National Charter.^[45]

Demographics[link]

Early demographics[link]

Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on two methods – censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settlement.

According to Magen Broshi, an Israeli archaeologist "... the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period—the late Byzantine period, around AD 600"^[46] Similarly, a study by Yigal Shiloh of The Hebrew University suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded a million. He writes: "... the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."^[47]

Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods[link]

Palestine, by S. Munk, Vilna 1913.

In the middle of the 1st century of the Ottoman rule, i.e. 1550 AD, Bernard Lewis in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine reports:^[48]

From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns of Jerusalem, Gaza, Safed, Nablus, Ramle, and Hebron. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens.

According to Alexander Scholch, the population of Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews^[49]

According to Ottoman statistics studied by Justin McCarthy,^[50] the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews.^[51] McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882, 737,389 in 1914, 725,507 in 1922, 880,746 in 1931 and 1,339,763 in 1946.^[52]

In 1920, the League of Nations' Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine stated that there were 700,000 people living in Palestine:

Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or—a small number—are Protestants. The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions.

—^[53]

By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were Arabs, and 32% were Jews (UNSCOP report, including bedouin).

Current demographics[link]

According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% were Jews, 18.5% Arabs, and 4.3% "others".^[54] Among Jews, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim — 22% from Europe,the former Soviet republics, Russia, and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.^[55]

Of Israel's 7 million citizens, 516,569 Jewish ones live in enclaves referred to as Israeli settlements and outposts in various lands adjacent to the state of Israel occupied by Israel during the Six Day War.^[56][57][58]

According to Palestinian evaluations, The West Bank is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million Palestinians and the Gaza Strip by another 1.4 million. According to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel's National Security^[59] there are 1.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. This study was criticised by demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who estimated 3.33 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined at the end of 2005.^[60]

According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the population in Israel and the Palestinian Territories stands between 9.8 and 10.8 million.

Jordan has a population of around 6,000,000 (2007 estimate).^[61][62] Long term Palestinian war refugees constitute approximately half of this number.^[63]

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	Asia portal
	Middle East portal
	Palestine portal
	Israel portal

• Outline of Palestine
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
• Names of the Levant
• Outline of the Palestinian territories
• Place names of Palestine

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (November 2010)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maps of the history of the Middle East

Wikisource has the text of the 1879 American Cyclopædia article Palestine.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Palestine

• www.palestinecenter.org - A website with current and historical information about Palestine
• Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report) (London, 1937) Jewishvirtuallibrary.org
• www.mideastweb.org - A website with a wealth of statistics regarding population in Palestine
• Coins and Banknotes of Palestine under the British Mandate
• WorldStatesmen- Maps, flags, chronology, see Israel and Palestinian National Authority
• hWeb - Israel-Palestine in Maps
• Palestine Fact Sheet from the Common Language Project
• 1911 Encyclopedia description of Palestine
• Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine
• Key Development Forecasts for Palestine from International Futures

Maps[link]

• Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916
• 1947 UN Partition Plan
• 1949 Armisitice Lines
• Israel After 1949 Armistice Agreements

v t e  Jewish nationalism and the region of Palestine Historic region of Palestine The State of Israel Israeli-occupied territories     History History of Palestine Timeline of the history of the region of Palestine Time periods in the Palestine region Timeline of the name Palestine Definitions of Palestine Demographics of Palestine The Jewish people Jewish history in the region of Palestine Timeline of Jewish history Chronology of Jewish settlement in the region of Palestine Israeli Jews Israeli culture Law of Return     History History of the State of Israel · Zionism · History of Zionism · Timeline of Zionism · Timeline of Anti-Zionism · Aliyah · Herzl · Balfour Declaration · UN General Assembly Resolution 181 · Declaration of Independence · Israeli–Palestinian conflict · History of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict · Arab–Israeli conflict · Israeli West Bank barrier · Israel's unilateral disengagement plan     Israeli settlements Israeli settlement timeline International law and Israeli settlements Demographics Political status Green Line (Israel) West Bank Judea and Samaria Area Gaza Strip Hof Aza Regional Council · Geography of the Gaza Strip East Jerusalem Positions on Jerusalem

v t e  Palestinian nationalism and the region of Palestine Palestine (region) State of Palestine Palestinian National Authority     Name and Definition Definitions of Palestine · Timeline of the name Palestine History of Palestine Timeline of the history of the region of Palestine Time periods in the Palestine region · Demographics of Palestine · Israeli–Palestinian conflict Palestinians Palestinian refugees · Palestinian culture · Palestinian diaspora · Palestinian right of return     Political status History of the State of Palestine Palestine Liberation Organization Green Line (Israel) West Bank History of the West Bank · Geography of the West Bank Gaza Strip History of Gaza · Geography of the Gaza Strip East Jerusalem Positions on Jerusalem · Jerusalem Governorate     Oslo Accords Oslo 2 Politics of the PNA Palestinian Legislative Council · PNA-Administered Cities · PNA Governorates · Palestinian law · Electoral districts · Foreign relations Political parties in the PNA Fatah Hamas

v t e Topics related to the historic region of Palestine History History of Palestine (Jewish history  · Muslim history  · Christian history)  · Timeline of the name Palestine  · Definitions of Palestine  · Time periods in the Palestine region  · Timeline of the region of Palestine history  · Demographics of Palestine Holy places All Abrahamic Religions Cave of the Patriarchs  · Joseph's Tomb  · Rachel's Tomb  · Lot's Tomb Judaism Four Holy Cities  · Western Wall Christianity Church of the Holy Sepulchre  · Church of the Nativity  · Basilica of the Annunciation Islam Dome of the Rock  · Al-Aqsa Mosque  · Great Mosque of Gaza Ruling regimes Philistines / Canaanites / New Kingdom Egypt  · Ancient Israel and Judah  · Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian Empire  · Persian Empire  · Hellenistic Greece and Hasmonean  · Roman Empire  · Byzantine Empire  · Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphates  · The Crusaders, Seljuks and Ayyubids  · The Mamluk  · Ottoman Empire  · British Empire  · Modern state of Israel / Palestinian territories / Egypt / Jordan

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"The Blue Marble" photograph of Earth, taken from Apollo 17

The flag of the World Health Organization combines a modern world map (azimuthal equidistant projection) with the Rod of Asclepius, in origin a symbol of the axis mundi^[1]

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth.^[2]

In a philosophical context it may refer to: (1) the whole of the physical Universe, or (2) an ontological world (see world disclosure). In a theological context, world usually refers to the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred. The "end of the world" refers to scenarios of the final end of human history, often in religious contexts.

World history is commonly understood as spanning the major geopolitical developments of about five millennia, from the first civilizations to the present.

World population is the sum of all human populations at any time; similarly, world economy is the sum of the economies of all societies (all countries), especially in the context of globalization. Terms like world championship, gross world product, world flags etc. also imply the sum or combination of all current-day sovereign states.

In terms such as world religion, world language, and world war, world suggests international or intercontinental scope without necessarily implying participation of the entire world.

In terms such as world map and world climate, world is used in the sense detached from human culture or civilization, referring to the planet Earth physically.

Etymology and usage[link]

The English word world comes from the Old English weorold (-uld), weorld, worold (-uld, -eld), a compound of wer "man" and eld "age," which thus means roughly "Age of Man."^[3] The Old English is a reflex of the Common Germanic *wira-alđiz, also reflected in Old Saxon werold, Old High German weralt, Old Frisian warld and Old Norse verǫld (whence the Icelandic veröld).^[4]

The corresponding word in Latin is mundus, literally "clean, elegant", itself a loan translation of Greek cosmos "orderly arrangement." While the Germanic word thus reflects a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare Midgard), presumably as opposed to the divine sphere on the one hand and the chthonic sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-Latin term expresses a notion of creation as an act of establishing order out of chaos.

'World' distinguishes the entire planet or population from any particular country or region: world affairs pertain not just to one place but to the whole world, and world history is a field of history that examines events from a global (rather than a national or a regional) perspective. Earth, on the other hand, refers to the planet as a physical entity, and distinguishes it from other planets and physical objects.

'World' can also be used attributively, to mean 'global', 'relating to the whole world', forming usages such as world community or world canonical texts.^[5]

By extension, a 'world' may refer to any planet or heavenly body, especially when it is thought of as inhabited, especially in the context of science fiction or futurology.

'World', in original sense, when qualified, can also refer to a particular domain of human experience.

• The world of work describes paid work and the pursuit of career, in all its social aspects, to distinguish it from home life and academic study.
• The fashion world describes the environment of the designers, fashion houses and consumers that make up the fashion industry.
• historically, the New World vs. the Old World, referring to the parts of the world colonized in the wake of the age of discovery. Now mostly used in zoology and botany, as New World monkey.

Philosophy[link]

The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1503) shows the "garden" of mundane pleasures flanked by Paradise and Hell. The exterior panel shows the world before the appearance of humanity, depicted as a disc enclosed in a sphere.

In philosophy, the term world has several possible meanings. In some contexts, it refers to everything that makes up reality or the physical universe. In others, it can mean have a specific ontological sense (see world disclosure). While clarifying the concept of world has arguably always been among the basic tasks of Western philosophy, this theme appears to have been raised explicitly only at the start of the twentieth century^[6] and has been the subject of continuous debate. The question of what the world is has by no means been settled.

Parmenides

The traditional interpretation of Parmenides' work is that he argued that the every-day perception of reality of the physical world (as described in doxa) is mistaken, and that the reality of the world is 'One Being' (as described in aletheia): an unchanging, ungenerated, indestructible whole.

Plato

In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato distingues between forms and ideas and imagines two distinct worlds : the sensible world and the intelligible world.

Hegel

In Hegel's philosophy of history, the expression Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht (World History is a tribunal that judges the World) is used to assert the view that History is what judges men, their actions and their opinions. Science is born from the desire to transform the World in relation to Man; its final end is technical application.

Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Representation is the central work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation; the Kantian thing-in-itself. He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be understood by analogy to the relationship between human will and human body.

Wittgenstein

Two definitions that were both put forward in the 1920s, however, suggest the range of available opinion. "The world is everything that is the case," wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in his influential Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in 1922. This definition would serve as the basis of logical positivism, with its assumption that there is exactly one world, consisting of the totality of facts, regardless of the interpretations that individual people may make of them.

Heidegger

Martin Heidegger, meanwhile, argued that "the surrounding world is different for each of us, and notwithstanding that we move about in a common world".^[7] The world, for Heidegger, was that into which we are always already "thrown" and with which we, as beings-in-the-world, must come to terms. His conception of "world disclosure" was most notably elaborated in his 1927 work Being and Time.

Freud

In response, Freud proposed that we do not move about in a common world, but a common thought process. He believed that all the actions of a person are motivated by one thing: lust. This led to numerous theories about reactionary consciousness.

Other

Some philosophers, often inspired by David Lewis, argue that metaphysical concepts such as possibility, probability and necessity are best analyzed by comparing the world to a range of possible worlds; a view commonly known as modal realism.

Religion and mythology[link]

It has been suggested that World (theology) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2010.

Mythological cosmologies often depict the world as centered around an axis mundi and delimited by a boundary such as a world ocean, a world serpent or similar.

See also[link]

Environment portal

• Globe
• List of sovereign states
• Universe

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: World

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: World

• World entry at The World Factbook

Dore Gold דורי גולד
11th Israel Ambassador to the United Nations
In office 1997–1999
Preceded by	Gad Yaacobi
Succeeded by	Yehuda Lancry

Dore Gold (Hebrew: דורי גולד‎, born 1953) is an Israeli statesman who has served in various diplomatic positions under several Israeli governments. He is the current President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He also served as an advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office.

Early life[link]

Dore Gold was born in 1953 in Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States, and was raised in a Conservative Jewish home. His primary education was spent at the Orthodox Yeshiva of Hartford^[1] In the 1970s, Gold attended Northfield Mount Hermon School (Class of 1971) and then enrolled in Columbia University. There Gold earned BA and MA in Political Science, and then a PhD in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies.^[2]

He studied literary Arabic and specialized in International Law, and his doctoral dissertation was about Saudi Arabia. This research later formed the foundation for his 2003 New York Times bestseller, Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. In the book, Gold argues that Saudi Arabia actively funds terrorism by supporting the enemies of the U.S. and attacking its allies.^[3] Today, Gold lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ofra, and his two children, Yael and Ariel.