Ramallah

Ramallah has buildings containing masonry from the period of Herod the Great, but no complete building predates the Crusades of the 11th century. In the 14th century, during Mamluk rule, Ramallah was a mixed Christian and Muslim village whose residents engaged in orchard farming and whose revenues belonged to an endowment for the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. It declined toward the end of Mamluk rule, but was resettled in the early 16th century, at first by small numbers of local Muslims then in significant numbers by Christians from Palestine and Transjordan. The local tradition ascribes modern Ramallah's founding at this time by the Hadaddin, Arab Christians who claimed descent from the Ghassanids, which partially correlates with official Ottoman records. Its lands remained endowed through the late 19th century, though by then for the Dome of the Rock.

Palestine came under British rule in 1920 and Ramallah's economy and status improved during this period.