PROFILBARU.COM

Nuba
Nuba
Municipality type C
Arabic transcription(s)
• Arabic	نوبا
	Nuba Location of Nuba within Palestine
	Coordinates: 31°36′26″N 35°02′12″E / 31.60722°N 35.03667°E
Palestine grid	153/112
State	State of Palestine
Governorate	Hebron
Government
• Type	Municipality
Population (2017)
• Total	5,631
Name meaning	probably meaning "a top"

Nuba (Arabic: نوبا) is a Palestinian village located eleven kilometers north-west of Hebron.The village is in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the southern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of 5,631 in 2017.^[1]

History

The village is mentioned in a late 14th-century document of the Mamluk Sultanate, which ruled Palestine from Cairo, where three villagers are named as "al'ru'asā [lit. 'the leaders'] in the village of Nūbā".^[3]

Ottoman era

Nuba, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1516, and in a tax register from 1596, the village was listed as part of the nahiya (sbdistrict) of Hebron in the Liwa of Jerusalem. It had a population of 82 Muslim households. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat, barley, vineyards and fruit trees, occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives; a total of 10,000 akçe.^[4]

In 1838, the biblical scholar Edward Robinson noted Nuba as a Muslim village between the mountains and Gaza, and administratively attached to Hebron.^[5] It was one of a cluster of villages at the foot of a mountain, together with Kharas and Beit Ula.^[6] An Ottoman village list from c. 1870 showed that Nuba had 52 houses and a population of 200, though the population count only included men.^[7]^[8] In 1883, PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Nuba as a "small village perched on a low hill, with a well about a mile to the east."^[9] In 1896 the population of Nuba was estimated to be about 537.^[10]

British Mandate era

In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Nuba' had a population 357, all Muslims.^[11] This had increased at the time of the 1931 census to 611 Muslims, living in 140 houses.^[12] In the 1945 statistics the population of Nuba was 760, all Muslims,^[13] who owned 22,836 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey.^[14] 403 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 10,116 for cereals,^[15] while 33 dunams were built-up (urban) land.^[16]

Nuba, British Mandate map, 1:20,000
Nuba 1945 1:250,000

Jordanian period

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Nuba came under Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,075 inhabitants in Nuba.^[17]

Post-1967

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Nuba has been under Israeli occupation.

Notable people from Nuba

Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn, a Palestinian historian.

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census, 2017 (PDF). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (Report). State of Palestine. February 2018. pp. 64–82. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
^ Palmer, 1881, p. 405
^ Singer, 1994, p. 36
^ Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 124
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p. 117
^ Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 2, p. 426
^ Socin, 1879, p. 158 It was noted in the district of Hebron
^ Hartmann, 1883, p. 143, noted 51 houses
^ Conder and Kitchener, 1883, SWP III, p. 309
^ Schick, 1896, p. 123
^ Barron, 1923, Table V, Sub-district of Hebron, p. 10. But see talk.
^ Mills, 1932, p. 33
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p. 23
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 50
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 93
^ Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics. Village Statistics, April, 1945. Quoted in Hadawi, 1970, p. 143
^ Government of Jordan, Department of Statistics, 1964, p. 23