ABSTRACT

T IJERE have 'been many estimates both of the population of Pales-tine from biblical times until our own day and of the Jewish population from time to time, but none has been more than a guess. Some of these Jewish estimates are given below:

The figures of the total population in biblical and early historical times are even less reliable. Account must be taken of popular prejudice against any 'numbering of the people', which goes back to King David's time (2 Samuel xxiv), and of the suspicion that a census is preparatory to taxation or conscriptIon. Even in 1931, if the beduin had known that they would be counted, they would have struck tents and flitted overnight. The average standard of living in early days was probably lower than it is in wide districts of the country to-day, but unless the character and fertility of the country have changed radically (as there is no reason to believe), it can never have supported a population much larger than at present. It is probable that during the last century of Ottoman r,ule the population of Palestine remained fairly constant. A Turkish estimate of 1914 was 689,300, but the territory did not coincide with the present administrative Palestine. With the return of the refugees after the war it was approximately 673,200 in 1920. But in the following twenty years it doubled. The sources of this almost unprecedented increase in population will now be considered in some detail.