Judaean Mountains

The Judaean Mountains, or Judaean Hills (Arabic: جبال الخليل‎ Jibal Al Khalil (lit. “Hebron Mountains”)), is a mountain range in Palestine and the West Bank where Jerusalem and several other biblical cities are located. The mountains reach a height of 1,026 metres (3,366 ft). The Judean Mountains can be separated to a number of sub-regions, including the Mount Hebron ridge, the Jerusalem ridge and the Judean slopes. These mountains formed the heartland of the Kingdom of Judah, where the earliest Jewish settlements emerged.

The Judaean mountains are part of a more extended range that runs in a north-south direction. The ridge consists of the Samarian Hills in its northern part, and of the Judaean mountains in its southern part, the two segments meeting at the latitude of Ramallah. The westward descent from the hard limestone country of the Judaean mountains towards the coastal plain is by way of a longitudinal trough of fosse cut through chalk, followed by the low, rolling soft limestone hills of the Shephelah, while eastwards the landscape falls steeply towards the Jordan Rift Valley. The southern end of the mountain range is at Beersheba in the northern part of the Negev, where the mountains slope down into the Beersheba-Arad valley. The average height of the Judaean mountains is of 900 metres (2,953 ft), and they encompass the cities of Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron. The northern section of the Judaean mountains is referred to as Jerusalem Hills, and the southern one as Hebron Hills.

The Judaean Mountains were heavily forested in antiquity. The range is mostly composed of terra rossa soils over hard limestones.