The maps

The land itself

People argue about this land from a distance. Start closer: where Gaza and the West Bank actually sit, then the maps that show how the land was divided, decade by decade, by decisions taken far from it.

Palestine today

It is a small country on the eastern Mediterranean. Gaza sits on the coast, the West Bank in the hills inland. Jerusalem lies between them. Pan to explore; the boundaries shown are the 1949 armistice lines, commonly called the Green Line.

Base map and data from OpenStreetMap contributors.

The land over time

The maps below are historical documents, reproduced from public archives with credits on each one. Read them in order. They show the division of the land more plainly than any headline has.

UN map of Palestine land ownership by sub-district, 1945 — Who farmed and owned the land, district by district, in the last full survey before 1948. Source: UN Village Statistics map (public domain).

The 1947 UN partition plan for Palestine — The UN partition plan of November 1947: the proposed Jewish state received about 55 percent of the land, where Jewish residents owned roughly 7 percent and numbered about a third of the population. Source: UN Partition Plan map (public domain).

Comparison of the 1947 partition plan and the 1949 armistice lines — What was proposed in 1947 and what held after the 1948 war: the armistice lines, later called the Green Line. Source: partition and armistice comparison map (public domain).

Survey of Palestine map of territories under Israeli, Egyptian, and Jordanian control in 1949 — After 1949: Gaza administered by Egypt, the West Bank by Jordan, the rest under Israeli control. The armistice agreement stated the lines were not a border. Source: Survey of Palestine map (released CC0).

Map of depopulated Palestinian villages from 1948 onward — The villages emptied in 1948 and after. Most were demolished; their names survive in family keys and village books. Source: depopulations map by BasilLeaf, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Map of West Bank control status under the Oslo Accords — The Oslo Accords split the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C. Area C, about 60 percent of the West Bank, stayed under full Israeli control, where most settlement growth has happened since. Source: Oslo Accords control-status map by SoWhAt249, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Location map of the Gaza Strip — Gaza itself: 41 kilometres of coast, home to over two million people before 2023, one of the densest places on earth. Source: Gaza Strip location map, CC BY-SA 4.0.