Qatanna

Qatanna (Arabic: قطنّه‎) is a Palestinian town in the central West Bank part of the Jerusalem Governorate, located twelve kilometers northwest of Jerusalem. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of approximately 7,500 inhabitants in 2006. Primary health care for the town is level 2.

Geography and land

Qatanna has an elevation of 650 meters above sea level. Nearby towns and villages include Biddu to the east and Beit Liqya to the north.

History

In the Roman and Byzantine periods, Qatanna was home to extensive settlement including agricultural institutions, roads, and many burial caves.

Ottoman era

Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, Qatanna appeared in the 1596 Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 12 households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives.

In 1863, the French explorer Victor Guérin found the village to have 250 inhabitants. In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it as a "small village in a deep, narrow, rocky valley, surrounded by fine groves of olives and vegetable gardens."