An Atlas of Palestine (The West Bank and Gaza)

Applied Research Institute Jerusalem 2000
210 pages Hard Cover 33 X 24 cms
Full color maps and illustrations
Price: $ 30 for individuals and $ 40 for institutions
Available from: ARIJ
P.O.Box 860 Caritas Street
Bethlehem Palestine
Tel. +972 (or 970) 2 2741889
Fax: +972 (or 970) 2 2776966

Dedicated to the Palestinian people with a pie chart showing Palestinian Population worldwide in 1998 this project is the first of its kind to be produced by Palestinians. Described by Ahmad Qrei' Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council in his introduction as " another building block towards Palestinian statehood" this Atlas was a cumulative effort based on a number of research projects and surveys. The result of five-years of dedicated work on the part of the ARIJ team of e perts it was hoped that the Atlas will come out after the completion of the final status negotiations. However as this was not the case "the Atlas was produced according to the current status of the peace process " as the project leader Dr. Jad Isaac states in his introduction . He goes on to add; "This Atlas does however contain a couple of blank pages which will be filled when the boundaries of Israel and Palestine have been delineated in the final status negotiations."

The Atlas consists of 6 Chapters: The first on History and Politics containing historical maps and in-formation dating back to 3000 BC until the January 5th 2000 Sharm Esh Sheikh Memorandum (Phase 2). Chapter 2 presents the Socioeconomic conditions with charts and maps portraying important socioeconomic statistics on the Palestinian population and Israeli colonies in Palestine. Chapter 3 moves into the Physical Characteristics of the land with Topographic maps and chapter four presents the Water Resources with maps of Water sources Groundwater basins and Wells . Chapter 5 highlights land use with maps of Industrial zones road networks dumping sites forests and nature reserves and immigration routes of different bird species amongst others. Chapter si ends the Atlas

with a closer look on the main Palestinian cities past and present with comparative aerial views of these cities in the beginning of this century and in the mid and late nineties.

This publication is truly an indispensable resource for "those who wish to add to their knowledge and understanding of Palestine as well as for those who are able to appreciate the dedication with which this publication was produced."