Image by samirsmier on Pixabay · Pixabay License
Beit Sahour
Sign in to savePalestinian city in the occupied West Bank
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Place details
- Locality
- بيت ساحور
- Region
- West Bank
- Country
- الأراضي الفلسطينية
- Population
- 14,921
- Timezone
- Asia/Hebron
via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames
Key facts
- Arabic
- بيت ساحور
- Latin
- Bayt Sāḥūr
- State
- State of Palestine
- Governorate
- Bethlehem
- Type
- Municipality
- Head of municipality
- Hani Hayek
- Municipality type b
- 6.9 km (2.7 sq mi)
- Density
- 1,900/km (5,000/sq mi)
- Metro
- 97,559 (Bethlehem area)
- Name meaning
- "House of vigilance", "house of the night watch", or "house of the magicians"
- Website
- Beit Sahour Municipality
via Wikipedia infobox
Official website
Beit Sahour Municipality
beitsahour.ps →Dating back to the Bronze Age around 3000 BC, Beit Sahour has a rich historical heritage, with evidence of Canaanite occupation found in its numerous caves. Traces of human habitation have been discovered dating back to Roman times, with remnants of ancient oil presses indicating settlement during the time of Jesus’s birth in nearby Bethlehem. The city abounds with historical and biblical sites, including ruins from the Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader periods scattered throughout the area. The bi-millennium celebrations generated a great deal of interest in the restoration of the cultural heritage in Beit Sahour. The preservation and expansion of the Old Centre would contribute enormously to the development of the tourism sector.
Read more on their site →Excerpt from the official site · 7,154 chars · not written by Vinony
Wikidata facts
- Official name
- بيت ساحور
- Country
- Palestine
- Located in
- Bethlehem Governorate
- Population
- 15000
- Area
- 6.97
- Elevation
- 620
- Time zone
- UTC+03:00
- Official website
- www.beitsahour.ps
- Image
- Beit-Sahour-Shepherds-Catholic-056.jpg
Show 7 more facts
- Commons category
- Beit Sahour
- twinned administrative body
- Miranda de Ebro
- postal code
- 182
- native label
- بيت ساحور
- P8168
- Mark Webber
- located in/on physical feature
- West Bank
via Wikidata · CC0
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Beit Sahour or Beit Sahur (Arabic: بيت ساحور, romanized: Bayt Sāḥūr; Palestine grid 170/123) is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem, in the Bethlehem Governorate of the West Bank in the State of Palestine. The city is under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority. The population was 13,281 in 2017, consisting of approximately 80% Christians (most of them Greek Orthodox) and 20% Muslims.
Christian tradition holds Beit Sahour to be the site of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. There are two enclosures in the eastern part of Beit Sahour that are claimed by different Christian denominations to be the actual 'Shepherds Field': one belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, and the other, the Catholic site, belonging to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Beit Sahour” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.