+ Palestine demographics, 1st century through the Mandate.Figures in thousands, i.e. 100 represents 100,000, 1,000 represents 1,000,000.See also the detailed timeline Year Jews Christians Muslims Total 1st c. Majority – – ~2,500 4th c. Majority Minority – >1st c.An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations by Edward Kessler P72The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period By William David Davies, Louis Finkelstein, P:409 5th c. Minority Majority – >1st c. End 12th c. Minority Minority Majority >225 14th c. Minority Minority Majority 150 1533–1539 5 6 145 156 1553–1554 7 9 188 205 1690–1691 2 11 219 232 1800 7 22 246 275 1890 43 57 432 532 1914 94 70 525 689 1922 84 71 589 752 1931 175 89 760 1,033 1947 630 143 1,181 1,970Estimates by Sergio DellaPergola (2001), drawing on the work of Bachi (1975). Figures in thousands. The population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel and Palestine, has varied in both size and ethnic composition throughout its history. Some see this demographic history as having implications in debates related to the matter of indigeneity in the region of Palestine and therefore political legitimacy in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Studies of Palestine's demographic changes over the millennia have shown that a Jewish majority in the first century AD had changed to a Christian majority by the 3rd century AD, and later to a Muslim majority, which is thought to have existed in Mandatory Palestine (1920-1948) since at least the 12th century AD, during which the total shift to Arabic language was completed.

Iron Age

During the seventh century BC, no fewer than eight nations were settled in Palestine. These included the Arameans of the kingdom of Geshur; the Samaritans who replaced the Israelite kingdom in Samaria; the Phoenicians in the northern cities and parts of Galilee; the Philistines in the Philistine pentapolis; the three kingdoms of the Transjordan– Ammon, Moab and Edom; and the Judaeans of Kingdom of Judah.Stern, Ephraim. "The Religious Revolution in Persian-Period Judah". Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period, edited by Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, 2006, pp. 199-206. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781575065618-011

According to Finkelstein and Broshi, the population of Palestine at the end of the eighth century BC was around 400,000. In the area of Judah in the central hills, Benjamin and Jerusalem, the population was approximately 110,000. By the early sixth century, Ofer's survey results suggest that around 100,000 lived in the kingdom of Judah, with the population in the central hills, Benjamin and Jerusalem about 69,000.

A study by Yigal Shiloh of The Hebrew University suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded one million. He writes: "... the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age..." Shiloh accepted Israeli archaeologist Magen Broshi's estimates of Palestine's population at 1,000,000–1,250,000 and noted that Iron Age Israel's population must have been less considering population growth. "...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."Yigal Shiloh, The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas, and Population Density, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 239, p. 33, 1980. One study of population growth from 1000 BC to 750 BC estimated the population of Palestine (Judah and Israel) had an average natural growth of 0.4 per cent per annum.

Persian period

+ Population distribution in Persian period Yehud Territory Carter Lipschits Finkelstein Benjamin 7625 12,500 - Jerusalem (and environs) 1500 2750 400 Northern Judean Hills 8850 9750 - Southern Judean Hills 2150 - - Shephelah - 4875 - Judean Desert/Eastern Strip 525 250 - Total 20,650 30,125 12,000Lipshits' data from The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule, Carter's data from The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period, Finkelstein's data from The Territorial Extent and Demography of Yehud/Judea

After the Babylonian conquest of Judah and exile, the population and settlement density of Jerusalem, the Shephelah and the Naqab desert dropped significantly.Katherine ER. Southward, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra, 9–10: An Anthropological Approach, Oxford University Press 2012 pp.103–203, esp. p. 193. The Persian province of Yehud Medinata was sparsely-populated and predominantly rural, with around half of the settlements of late Iron age Judah and a population of around 30,000 in the 5th to 4th centuries BC. On the other hand, settlement continuity is discerned in the northern parts of the Judean mountains and the Benjamin area. Cities such as Tell en-Nasbeh, Gibeon and Bethel managed to escape destruction and remained continuously inhabited until the early Achaemenid rule.

As early as the 7th century BC, Edomites had lived in the Naqab desert and southern Judah, and by the time Judah fell in 586 BC there was already a substantial Edomite population in southern Judah. When the kingdom of Edom itself succumbed, those people continued its traditions in the south, which the Arabic-speaking Qedarites controlled.Yigal Levin, The_Religion_of_Idumea_and_Its_Relationship_to_Early_Judaism 'The Religion of Idumea and Its Relationship to Early Judaism,' MDPI Religions 2020, 11, 487 pp.1–27 pp.2,4–5 This area, which became known as Idumaea, was inhabited by a diverse population of Edomites, Judahites, Phoenicians, Qedarites and other Arabs. Based on analysis of epigraphic material and ostraca from the region, around 32% of recorded names were Arabic, 27% were Edomite, 25% were Northwest Semitic, 10% were Judahite (Hebrew) and 5% were Phoenician. A few names were also classified Egyptian and Old Iranian.Yigal Levin, 'Judea, Samaria and Idumea: Three Models of Ethnicity and Administration in the Persian Period' 2012

The exilic returnees resettled during the time of Cyrus the Great, perhaps with a heightened sense of their ethnic identity. Along the coast of western Palestine, the Phoenicians expanded their presence, while Moabites and Ammonites took refuge in the Cisjordan after the destruction of their kingdoms in 582 BC.

Hellenistic and Hasmonean period

Following the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire and the subsequent Wars of the Diadochi, Palestine came under Hellenistic rule and was contested by the Seleucids and Ptolemaics.

Between 167 and 160 BC, the Jewish rebel faction of the Maccabees revolted against Seleucid rule, ultimately leading to the independence of the Hasmonean dynasty. Under John Hyrcanus, the Hasmoneans expanded their territories beyond the traditional confines of Judea and incorporated non-Jewish areas in the process.. 1 Maccabees relates that the non-Jewish inhabitants of Gezer and Joppa were expelled by Simon Thassi, who settled Jews in their place. Coinciding with the account of Josephus, archaeological evidence attests to significant destruction in the urban and rural settlements in Idumaea, Samaria and the coastal cities from the Hasmonean conquests, followed by the resettlement of Jews in the newly conquered territories.Faust, A., and Erlich, A., 2008, The Hasmonean Policy toward the Gentile Population in Light of the Excavations at Kh. er-Rasm and Additional Rural Sites, Jerusalem and Eretz Israel 6: 5-32 (HEBREW) Nevertheless, there's evidence that some of the non-Jewish inhabitants stayed in all of the newly conquered areas.

Many sites in Idumaea experienced destruction, including Maresha, Khirbet el-Rasm, Tel Arad, Khirbet 'Uza and possibly Lachish. The lower city of Maresha and Tel Beersheba were soon abandoned, and evidence for an increased Idumaean presence in Egypt suggests some immigrated there. Idumaeans were eventually forcibly proselytized and co-opted into the Jewish nation by John Hyrcanus. Further north, the Galilee received significant Jewish migration from Judea after its conquest, contributing to a 50% increase in settlements, while the pagan population was greatly reduced. By the end of Alexander Jannaeus' reign, the Galilee was also predominantly Jewish.Leibner, Uzi. "Determining the Settlement History of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Sites in the Galilee, Israel: Comparing Surface, Subsurface, and Stratified Artifact Assemblages." Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 39, no. 4, 2014, pp. 387–400. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24408752. Accessed 11 Jan. 2024. However, unlike John Hyrcanus, Alexander Jannaeus did not compel the non-Jews to assimilate to the Jewish ethnos and permitted minority ethnē to exist within Hasmonean borders, with the exception of Phoenician coastal cities in the north whom Josephus claims he enslaved.

Roman period

Herodian and early Roman periods The Roman conquest of Judea led by Pompey took place in 63 BC. The Roman occupation encompassed the end of Jewish independence in Judea, the last years of the Hasmonean kingdom, the Herodian age and the rise of Christianity, the First Jewish–Roman War, and the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple, and later, the Bar Kokhba revolt.Horbury and Davies (2008) Preface. In: The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 3, The Early Roman Period. p. xi

Modern estimates vary: Applebaum argues that in the Herodian kingdom, there were 1.5 million Jews, a figure Ben David says covers the numbers in Judea alone. Salo Wittmayer Baron estimated the population at 2.3 million at the time of Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). According to Israeli archeologist Magen Broshi, west of the Jordan River the population certainly did not exceed 1 million:'Jack Pastor, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine, Routledge, 2013 p.6. "... the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period – the late Byzantine period, around AD 600"Magen Broshi, The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 236, p. 7, 1979. Broshi made calculations based on the grain-producing capacity of Palestine and on its role in the indigenous diet, assuming an average annual per-capita consumption of 200 kg. (with a maximum of 250 kg.), which would work out to the limit of a sustainable population of 1,000,000 people, a figure which, Broshi states, remained roughly constant down to the end of the Byzantine period (600 CE).Magen Broshi, 'The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period,' Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 236 (Autumn, 1979), pp.1–10, p. 7. The proportion of Jews to gentiles is also unknown.

Local population displacements occurred with the expulsion of the Jews from JerusalemJames A. Sanders (2008) The canonical process In: The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4, p. 235 – "In the earlier revolt in the previous century, 66–73 CE, Rome destroyed the Temple and forbade Jews to live in the remaining parts of Jerusalem; for this reason, the Rabbis gathered instead on the Mediterranean coast in Yavneh near Jaffa". Dispersal to other parts of the Roman Empire occurred, but some earlier settlements were also established as early as 4 BC.E. Mary Smallwood (2008), The Diaspora in the Roman period before CE 70. In: The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 3. Editors Davis and Finkelstein. The total population of Pharisees, the forerunners of modern Rabbinic Judaism, was around 6,000 ("exakischilioi"), according to Josephus.Antiquities of the Jews, 17.42

Impact of the Bar Kokhba revolt