Tel Aviv

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History

The walled city of Jaffa is modern-day Tel Aviv-Yafo's only urban centre that existed in early modern times. Jaffa was an important port city in the region for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows signs of human settlement there starting in roughly 7,500 BC. The city was established around 1,800 BC at the latest. Its natural harbour has been used since the Bronze Age. By the time Tel Aviv was founded as a separate city during Ottoman rule of the region, Jaffa had been ruled by the Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Phoenicians, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, the early Islamic caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, and Mamluks before coming under Ottoman rule in 1515. It had been fought over numerous times. The city is mentioned in ancient Egyptian documents, as well as the Hebrew Bible. Other ancient sites in Tel Aviv include: Tell Qasile, Tel Gerisa, Abattoir Hill, Tel Hashash, and Tell Qudadi. During the First Aliyah in the 1880s, when Jewish immigrants began arriving in the region in significant numbers, new Jewish neighborhoods were founded outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv. The first was Neve Tzedek, founded in 1887 by Mizrahi Jews due to overcrowding in Jaffa and built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche. The urban planning for the new city was influenced by the garden city movement. The first 60 plots were purchased in Kerem Djebali (Karm al-Jabali) near Jaffa by Jacobus Kann, a Dutch citizen, who registered them in his name to circumvent the Turkish prohibition on Jewish land acquisition. Meir Dizengoff, later Tel Aviv's first mayor, also joined the Ahuzat Bayit society. On 11 April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery…

Geography

Tel Aviv is located around on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, in central Israel, the historic land bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa. Immediately north of the ancient port of Jaffa, Tel Aviv lies on land that used to be sand dunes and as such has relatively poor soil fertility. The land has been flattened and has no important gradients; its most notable geographical features are bluffs above the Mediterranean coastline and the Yarkon River mouth. Because of the expansion of Tel Aviv and the Gush Dan region, absolute borders between Tel Aviv and Jaffa and between the city's neighborhoods do not exist. The city is located northwest of Jerusalem and south of the city of Haifa. Neighboring cities and towns include Herzliya to the north, Ramat HaSharon to the northeast, Petah Tikva, Bnei Brak, Ramat Gan and Giv'atayim to the east, Holon to the southeast, and Bat Yam to the south. The city is economically stratified between the north and south. Southern Tel Aviv is considered less affluent than northern Tel Aviv with the exception of Neve Tzedek and northern and north-western Jaffa. Central Tel Aviv is home to Azrieli Center and the important financial and commerce district along Ayalon Highway. The northern side of Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, Yarkon Park, and upscale residential neighborhoods such as Ramat Aviv and Afeka. Tel Aviv is ranked as the greenest city in Israel. Since 2008, city lights are turned off annually in support of Earth Hour. In February 2009, the municipality launched a water saving campaign, including competition granting free parking for a year to the household that is found to have consumed the least water per person. In the early 21st century, Tel Aviv's municipality transformed a derelict power station into a public…

Most-observed species

• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  14,614
• Common Myna

  Acridotheres tristis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  14,570
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  13,282
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  11,869
• White-spectacled Bulbul

  Pycnonotus xanthopygos (Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) · Aves
  11,296
• Rose-ringed Parakeet

  Psittacula krameri (Scopoli, 1769) · Aves
  11,228
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  10,254
• Graceful Prinia

  Prinia gracilis (Lichtenstein, 1823) · Aves
  10,184

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2023-02-07
  Dead Sea region
• M 3.7 — 2022-01-23
  4 km ENE of Kafr Mi?r, Israel
• M 4.1 — 2022-01-22
  4 km E of Taiyiba, Israel
• M 4.5 — 2020-02-06
  26 km W of Atlit, Israel
• M 4 — 2018-07-04
  1 km N of Giv‘at Avni, Israel
• M 4.1 — 2011-08-07
  40 km WNW of Sdot Yam, Israel