A highland city holy to three Abrahamic faiths
Jerusalem sits on a Judaean Mountains plateau between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea—among the world's oldest continuously storied cities and sacred in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Settlement traces at the City of David reach the fourth millennium BCE; Egyptian texts already name Urusalim in the fourteenth century BCE.
Etymology often ties the name to founding the dusk-god Shalem, from Semitic roots shared with words for peace—hence later readings as "city of peace," though scholars also note a dual ending that may recall two hills. Execration Texts and Amarna letters (Úrušalim) are among the earliest extra-biblical mentions. By the ninth century BCE the site was the religious and administrative heart of Judah. Across millennia the sources tally at least two destructions, twenty-three sieges, forty-four captures, and fifty-two attacks.
Hebrew Bible tradition has David taking the Jebusite stronghold and Solomon raising the First Temple; Christian memory centres Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection; in Islam the city ranks third after Mecca and Medina as first qibla and site of Muhammad's Night Journey in 621. Inside roughly 0.9 square kilometres the Old City holds the Temple Mount compound with the Western Wall, Dome of the Rock, and Al-Aqsa, plus the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the walls in 1538; four quarters—Armenian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—were recognised by the nineteenth century, and UNESCO listed the Old City in 1981.
After 1860 growth spilled far beyond those walls. Sources report a 2024 population of about 1,050,153, and for 2022 roughly sixty percent Jewish and almost forty percent Palestinian residents. Arabic names include al-Quds ("the holy"); Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolina after the Bar Kokhba revolt. The card stays with this deep historical and geographic frame rather than present-day sovereignty disputes.
Source: Jerusalem
