West Bank
The
West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية
aḍ-Ḍaffah l-Ġarbiyyah, Hebrew: הגדה המערבית,
HaGadah HaMa'aravit or
Cisjordan, also Hebrew: יהודה ושומרון
Yehuda ve-Shomron (Judea and Samaria)) is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, forming the bulk of the Palestinian territories. The West Bank shares boundaries (demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949) to the west, north, and south with the state of Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coastline along the western bank of the Dead Sea. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 and 220 km2 water, the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013). More than 80%, about 2,100,000, are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem, in Israeli settlements.