Few place names carry as much history in so few syllables as Judea and Samaria. To answer the question simply: Judea and Samaria is the mountainous heartland at the center of the Land of Israel, stretching along both sides of the central ridge that runs north and south of Jerusalem. It is the setting for most of the Hebrew Bible, the homeland of the patriarchs and the Israelite kings, and the place the world today often calls by a far more recent name — the West Bank. Understanding the difference between those two names is the key to understanding the region itself.

What Does “Judea and Samaria” Mean?פֵּשֶׁר הַשֵּׁם

The names are not labels invented for a map — they are drawn straight from Scripture and from the tribes who lived here.

To define Judea: the word comes from Yehudah (Judah), the most prominent of the twelve tribes of Israel and the namesake of the southern Israelite kingdom. The same Hebrew root gives us the words “Judaism” and “Jew.” Samaria comes from Shomron, the hilltop city that King Omri established as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel in the ninth century BCE. Together, the Hebrew phrase Yehudah v’Shomron — Judea and Samaria — names the two historic divisions of the central highlands.

So what does Judea and Samaria mean in practice? It is a single geographic region with two halves: Judea in the south and Samaria in the north. The terms are old, biblical, and descriptive. The alternative name, “West Bank,” is barely seventy years old and describes nothing about the land itself — only its position relative to a river, as we’ll see below.

Where Is Judea and Samaria Located?הַמִּקּוּם

Where is Judea today, and what country is Judea in? The short answer: in the very center of modern Israel.

Judea and Samaria sits west of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, east of Israel’s coastal plain, and it wraps around Jerusalem on the north, east, and south. Anyone asking where Judea is located today, or whether Judea is in Israel, is really asking about a strip of hill country roughly 130 kilometers long. It is the geographic and spiritual spine of the country. The region as administered by Israel covers about 5,878 square kilometers (around 2,270 square miles).

The Land of Judea (the South)

Judea is the southernmost of the historic divisions. Its core is the Judean Hills, running south from the Ramallah area through Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron toward Beersheba. This is the land of King David, who reigned first from Hebron for seven years before moving his capital to Jerusalem. The historical geography of Judea as the heartland of the Holy Land has been documented for centuries, including in collections such as the Houston Christian University Bible museum. To this day Hebron is home to the Cave of the Patriarchs (Machpelah), the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the matriarchs — the oldest continuously venerated Jewish site in the world.

The Region of Samaria (the North)

Samaria lies between Judea and the Galilee. Its landscape is defined by the Samarian Hills — including Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim — and centers on the area of ancient Shechem (modern Nablus), Shiloh, and Bethel. Shiloh is where the Tabernacle stood for centuries before the Temple was built in Jerusalem. The city of Samaria itself served as the royal capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel; its archaeology and history are detailed by the University of Arizona’s Bible and Interpretation project. The table below sets the two regions side by side.

A Short History of Judea and Samariaתּוֹלְדוֹת הָאָרֶץ

The history of Judea and Samaria is, in large measure, the history of the Jewish people itself.

The Jewish connection to this land is not a modern claim. It is the oldest continuous national attachment of any people to any territory on earth, recorded in Scripture and confirmed by archaeology across the hills of both regions.

From the Patriarchs to the Israelite Kingdoms

The story begins with Abraham, who purchased the field and cave of Machpelah in Hebron as a family burial plot — the first recorded Jewish land purchase in the region. Centuries later the tribes of Israel settled the highlands, and Judea became one of the first territories the nation made its own. Under David and Solomon the land was united; after Solomon’s death it divided into the southern Kingdom of Judah, centered on Jerusalem, and the northern Kingdom of Israel, centered on Samaria.

• Genesis 13:14–15

  וַֽיהוָ֞ה אָמַ֣ר אֶל־אַבְרָ֗ם … שָׂ֣א נָ֤א עֵינֶ֙יךָ֙ וּרְאֵ֔ה … צָפֹ֥נָה וָנֶ֖גְבָּה וָקֵ֥דְמָה וָיָֽמָּה׃ כִּ֧י אֶת־כָּל־הָאָ֛רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־אַתָּ֥ה רֹאֶ֖ה לְךָ֣ אֶתְּנֶ֑נָּה וּֽלְזַרְעֲךָ֖ עַד־עוֹלָֽם׃

  “And the LORD said unto Abram … ‘Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.’”

  English: JPS 1917 (public domain). Hebrew: Masoretic text.

  Context. Abraham receives this promise while standing in the central highlands — the very hills of Judea and Samaria. The land grant to his descendants is foundational to how Jewish tradition has always understood the region.

Exile, Return, and a Continuous Presence

The northern kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 BCE; the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon, which destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE and exiled its people. Yet the Jews returned, rebuilt, and under the Maccabees re-established an independent kingdom. Rome conquered the land in 63 BCE and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE; after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 135 CE the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina to sever the Jewish link to Judea. The link was never broken in practice: a Jewish community lived on in Hebron and elsewhere almost continuously through the Byzantine, Arab, Mamluk, and Ottoman eras.

From “West Bank” Back to Judea and Samaria

This is where the modern terminology question is answered. In the 1948 war, Jordan invaded and occupied the region, expelling its Jewish communities. Because the land lay on the western bank of the Jordan River — opposite Jordan proper on the east bank — Jordan coined the name “West Bank.” In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel regained the territory, and by early 1968 Israeli usage had formally restored the historic names Judea and Samaria. The timeline below traces the arc.

Judea and Samaria Todayבַּיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה

Present-day Judea: a thriving, growing region administered by Israel as the Judea and Samaria Area.

So where is modern-day Judea, and who lives there? Today the Israeli-administered Judea and Samaria Area is home to a flourishing Jewish community of well over half a million residents, alongside Palestinian towns governed under the framework of the 1990s Oslo Accords. Jewish communities here have grown faster than Israel’s national average for decades, as the figures below show.

That steady climb reflects what residents describe as a return, not a settlement of empty space. Visitors can now tour the region’s biblical sites freely; Hebron in particular has been named among the must-see attractions in Israel, and it features on most lists of the country’s top biblical tourist destinations.

Why Judea and Samaria Matterלָמָּה זֶה חָשׁוּב

Spiritually and strategically, this region is the foundation stone of the Jewish state.

For the Jewish people, Judea and Samaria is not abstract territory. It is the landscape of the Bible: the hills the patriarchs walked, the altars of the prophets, the cities of the kings. The Israeli writer’s point that the “locus classicus” of Jewish history is Hebron, Shiloh, Shechem, and Bethlehem — not the modern coastal cities — captures the depth of the attachment.

That is also why the name matters so much. Reading the land through its biblical names, rather than a riverbank label coined in 1948, restores the historical truth that many advocates argue has been obscured. As one recent report put it, the case that Judea and Samaria are the rightful inheritance of the Jewish people rests on a connection older than almost any other nation’s claim to its homeland. Organizations like the Hebron Fund work to sustain Jewish life in this heartland — supporting the community that lives, today, where the story began.

• Biblical — the setting of most of the Hebrew Bible and the burial place of the patriarchs.
• Historical — the site of continuous Jewish presence across three millennia.
• Strategic — the high ground above Israel’s population centers.
• Living — home today to a growing community and open to visitors.

Frequently Asked Questionsשְׁאֵלוֹת נְפוֹצוֹת