Travel through the historical geography of Palestine using archival photographs, maps, village records and documents. Each exhibit identifies its source and distinguishes proposals from the events and boundaries that followed.
Explore the landscape through the lives of Palestinian communities, the records of their towns, and the territorial decisions that reshaped their future. This atlas documents political Zionism and Israeli state practices through the evidence of land, displacement, and occupation, without obscuring Palestinian life before or after 1948.
Palestinian history through its places, maps and archivesCover artwork is a contemporary AI-generated illustration, not a photograph of an identified historical site.Explore the collections
Explore the documents through which Palestine was governed, the towns and villages that people inhabited, and the preserved memories of those who lived through displacement. The original records remain available beside the stories they help document.
A 1947 UN recommendation, not a map of implemented borders.
Military lines agreed in 1949, not a final territorial settlement.
Secondary gazetteer coordinates, not a survey-certified village boundary.
An archival description of interview topics, not a reviewed transcript or verified quotation.
About the historical media: Archival photographs and dated survey-map images appear where a specific collection record and an appropriate reuse statement have been identified. Interviews are represented by archive catalogue descriptions; the original recordings are not reproduced here. Source links remain available beside the exhibits.
Places · documents · remembered lives
The archive begins with the places people knew: the streets of Jaffa, the neighborhoods of Jerusalem, the hills around Nablus and the villages whose names remain in family histories. Photographs, population registers and testimony preserve details of daily life alongside the decisions about land and political authority. Here, those records can be examined in their historical sequence, with their dates and original sources available to the reader.
Continue the paper trail: What happened to homes, land and blocked assets? →
Move through four documentary moments. This sequence uses abstract visual language, not historical cartographic boundaries. The original sources remain one click away.
A proposed allocation is not an implemented border.
Resolution 181 (II) recommended a partition plan with an international regime proposed for Jerusalem. It was a proposal, not a signed 1949 armistice boundary or a record of what happened to every community.
Read source: Resolution 181 (II) · official UN text ↗The April 1949 General Armistice Agreement had a different purpose and its own annexed map sheets, including a separate Jerusalem sheet. A military demarcation line must not be presented as the 1947 proposal or an agreed final sovereign border.
Read source: UN document S/1302/Rev.1 ↗At Lausanne, the Commission presented a map depicting territories from the 1947 partition proposal as the basis for discussion. An American diplomatic telegram recorded Israeli reservations. The protocol did not enact that map as a territorial settlement.
Read source: UNCCP Third Progress Report A/927 ↗Representatives of Palestinian refugee organizations sought direct consultation about repatriation, property and participation in technical discussions. Their recorded demands do not establish that those organizations signed the Lausanne Protocol or that the Commission implemented the requested safeguards.
Read source: UNCCP records · indexed primary documents ↗This documentary interface distinguishes proposals, armistices, negotiations and refugee testimony. Animated forms are intentionally symbolic and do not imply verified routes, borders, displacement paths or parcel locations. Examine original-map provenance and limitations.
Twenty-five previously recorded localities appear as reference points. Explore five examples, or choose any of the 25 records. These dots are not village footprints, political boundaries or routes of displacement.
For recordings and permissions, search the American University of Beirut Palestinian Oral History Archive. Indexed links do not establish that a recording was consulted or cleared for republication.
Methodology: All 25 coordinates and 1945 population estimates are copied without adjustment from the Atlas’s existing curated PalOpenMaps/pom-data secondary gazetteer records. The schematic plots only those points with latitude/longitude proportions adjusted for local east–west distance. Selection and camera magnification do not add historic precision. A point cannot establish a village’s footprint, property title, historical route, or exact wartime event location. Distinct underlying map-sheet reuse rights remain unreviewed; this display copies no archival image. About Palestine Open Maps ↗
Repository file audit, 11 October 2026: all 25 locality JSON files were individually fetched from PalOpenMaps/pom-data through GitHub; 25 of 25 longitude, latitude and population values match the original Atlas source fields. Per-file Git blob identifiers are recorded in the downloadable dataset and manifest. This establishes source-transcription agreement only. It does not independently verify original 1940s map control, historical village boundaries or original population estimates. The POM source files include catalogue metadata for some oral histories, not independently reviewed interviews. See the 1945 statistics methodology and original UN map inventory.
Villages were places where people grew food, raised children, learned, celebrated, and made music. The oral-history archive preserves memories of daily life alongside accounts of conflict, departure, and the experience of exile. Select an archived interview to follow its original catalogued topics.
Research boundary: These are verified AUB catalogue entries and timed subject indexes, not transcripts or listened-to testimony. No recording is embedded, translated, quoted or redistributed. The source publisher retains the rights indicated on each record.
Five carefully indexed records across Saʿsaʿ, Lūbyā and al-Baṣṣah/Haifa. The wider catalogue remains available from AUB.
The original AUB record, including its rights and topic index, is the authority for each listing. Source summaries do not substitute for hearing the Arabic recordings, preparing verified transcripts, obtaining permissions, or independently checking historical claims.
Compare indexed archival accounts without putting words in the speakers’ mouths. The selections start with two people from Lūbyā: one catalogue foregrounds agriculture, public life and displacement; the other indexes songs, rural customs and weddings. These descriptions are the archivists’ subject headings, not verified quotations or independent historical corroboration.
Comparing two original archive records.
AUB Libraries and partner institutions preserve and provide access to the archive; each of the five interview records identifies the Nakba Archive as copyright holder, with all rights reserved. The record names and indexed topic headings can guide research, but the archive pages do not establish permission to embed media, translate speech, present dramatic dialogue, or reproduce original thumbnails.
For any proposed audio/video excerpt or image, specify the original AUB record ID, exact proposed time range, intended editorial use, whether a translation or captions will appear, geographic availability, attribution and duration of permission. Ask the archive and the rights holder to confirm the applicable authorizations in writing. No such authorization has been received or requested by this Atlas.
Publication gate: interview recording not reviewed; transcript not verified; reuse license not granted. A record’s index cannot authenticate an event independently of other evidence.
After displacement, some families faced questions about land, homes, bank accounts and the crops they had left behind. Follow what people requested, what officials recorded, and what later researchers attempted to measure.
Six linked historical documents, including a recorded disagreement, not a reconstruction of anyone’s property title. Changing a record does not change the facts.
REFUGEE PETITION / PRIMARY DOCUMENT
9 May 1949
The 1949 petitions and UN proceedings belong to a different source class than the later technical reports. The UNCCP recorded releases of blocked bank-account funds, which must not be conflated with payment of compensation for lost land or housing. This exhibit does not display individual title records. The 1966 objections raised by four governments concerning unregistered and communal land rights are recorded alongside the UNCCP's response. These disputes were not resolved by the displayed documents. The Atlas's 25 locality reference points remain geographical research references, not legal descriptions of parcels.
Every territorial illustration must be tied to an identified historical document, a dated map edition and verified geographic coordinates. These sources serve different purposes. The labels below distinguish an archival proposal, a classified GIS demarcation, and a later legal assessment. Readers can open the source records while the map remains clearly marked as a research preview.
General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) was adopted 29 November 1947. The linked United Nations map page identifies Map No. 103.1(b) as a February 1956 edition, based on a modified April 1946 Survey of Palestine map, illustrating the 1947 proposal. Its issuance must not be confused with adoption of the resolution or authentication of a 1947 original map impression. The separate third-party ArcGIS polygon dataset has no demonstrated chain to this mapped edition and remains uncertified research geometry.
UN · Annex A to Resolution 181 ↗UN OCHA publishes a Green Line polyline with a finite geographic extent. The Palestinian government publishes separately categorized West Bank armistice and later Gaza delimitation features. A source extent cannot establish completeness or historical accuracy.
OCHA layer metadata ↗Occupied territories, later access restrictions and internationally assessed legal consequences must be connected to their own dated evidence. Historic Palestinian village records remain selectable even where the vector boundary files are incomplete.
ICJ · Occupied Palestinian Territory ↗The atlas examines how Zionist political institutions, British colonial policy, and successive Israeli governments affected Palestinian land and life. It follows Palestinian communities as historical subjects in their own right, including their relationships to place before 1948. Cartographic evidence is identified by its original date and purpose; the movement applied to photographs is an editorial treatment and never offered as newly discovered film.
These lines come from published geographic services maintained by the United Nations and Palestinian institutions. Their extents, dates and purposes differ. Toggle each source to see its actual published geometry on the same present-day reference map.
Choose a source above to show its documented linework.
Snapshot retrieved 11 October 2026. Spatial data is presented as maintained by each publishing service; it is not an authenticated reconstruction of signed treaty-map annexes. Barrier status classifications describe the published GIS record, not necessarily present-day construction conditions. Source GeoJSON files can be inspected directly from the active map below.
Load the UN OCHA West Bank barrier linework from its original ArcGIS feature service. The layer preserves published status values and reports the retrieval date. The service does not provide a complete, independently authenticated chronology of construction, and displayed statuses should not be treated as current physical conditions.
Open the map-view selector above and switch between documents. A map describing a proposed boundary in 1947 cannot establish where an army stood in 1949. The present comparison separates the event date from the map's publication or retrospective compilation date.
Document: British Mandate motor map, revised October 1945. Records roads and place names, rather than future partition or armistice lines.
Document: UN map 103.1(b), published February 1956, depicts the General Assembly's November 1947 partition proposal. Its borders are proposed, not a record of implementation.
Document: UN map 3067 Rev. 1, published April 1983, includes an inset depicting 1949 armistice lines. Armistice demarcation must not be described as a final international border.
These document views do not yet constitute georeferenced, independently digitized polygons. Before territorial animation can be considered verified, every layer needs identifiable source sheet, representation date, projection, control points, residual registration errors, licensing, and an explicit proposed/observed/administrative classification. Imagery may fail to load on networks blocking external archival hosts; the archive links remain available.
1947 contemporary UN map record ↗ 1983 UN comparison record ↗This is the Library of Congress copy of a 1945 Palestine map, catalogued as LC-DIG-matpc-12336. Its catalogue says “No known restrictions on publication.” It is a separate source from the Survey of Palestine motor map referenced above; it cannot be used as an authenticated land-parcel or armistice boundary.
Open exact holding-institution record ↗The left and right documents can be changed independently. Zoom closer to a place name or line, then follow each original source. These are separately scaled document images rather than spatially registered overlays; an apparent shift in a line on the page cannot be measured as a geographic change.
Interpretive control: a 1947 proposed partition, a 1949 military armistice demarcation, and a twentieth-century retrospective compilation are not interchangeable boundary evidence. A 1956 or 1983 publication can portray a 1947 or 1949 decision. The date of the depicted event remains distinct from the map's publication date.
Select a chapter to shift the archival imagery and geographic focus together. Photographs are presented with their original dates; the camera animation is a modern visual treatment. Scenes without corresponding photographs are labeled as contextual artwork.
The historical record begins with existing communities, not with a partition proposal.
These photographs document identifiable places in Palestine before 1948. Each image has its own original catalogue entry, photographer attribution where supplied, date or date range, and a clearly stated rights advisory. They do not illustrate events that occurred decades earlier.
Choose a photograph to inspect its exact caption and source. The gallery follows the archival date, independent of modern administrative place-name conventions.
Export the atlas's documentary map records, their dates and classifications, and the institution links in a machine-readable JSON file. It also records which geographic layers are still unverified, so proposed boundaries cannot be mistaken for authoritative surveyed polygons.
The tables below reproduce 1944–45 village population estimates and land figures through Sami Hadawi's 1970 publication. They are historical administrative statistics; the original Mandate sheets have not been independently inspected for this release.
Hadawi’s reproduced 1944–45 estimate is 2,550 (Table I, p. 57), also listed by the Institute for Palestine Studies and Palestine Open Maps. Other secondary summaries give 2,250; the original sheet has not been re-inspected to resolve the discrepancy.
The reproduced 1944–45 estimate is 1,130 (Table I, p. 71). An approximately 1,310 figure refers to a later 1948 population estimate and cannot be substituted for the earlier administrative series.
The bar reports historical tabular categories, not mapped parcel locations or present ownership. Percentages are rounded separately. Hadawi’s reproduction of the 1945 table ↗
The atlas now examines twenty-five named localities across the historical population record. Select a census year to see the reported population of each place, and investigate what the later locality register says became of it. The locations remain visible even when a population figure is unavailable.
This is a curated sample, and it cannot represent Palestine's total population. Markers indicate reported settlement locations rather than land ownership, village limits, or territorial borders. The later status information is a separate source classification.
The circle radius indicates a recorded population using a square-root scale, with a minimum size for small villages; area comparisons are approximate. Locations and figures are sourced individually below.
For keyboard and touch navigation, use the 25 named community controls beside this diagram; all plotted points have a matching text control.
Watch the recorded populations of selected Palestinian villages before 1948, then examine a later locality-status dataset. The names stay in place throughout. The animated rings represent the data publisher’s classification of a locality in 2016; they do not represent people disappearing, and no later missing population is treated as zero.
A documented village, its residents, and the continuing historical record.
Source: Palestine Open Maps, locality GeoJSON records. This is a deliberately selected nine-village sample; it cannot be generalized to all Palestine. Population figures are tied to separate historical enumerations. The 2016 categories are dataset labels and do not describe conditions in 2026. Reported depopulation dates remain subject to locality-level verification.
Each record links directly to the university’s catalogue and, when available, its original recorded interview. Descriptions below are based on the archive’s indexing; no words are represented as direct quotations. Recordings are owned by their copyright holders and are neither downloaded nor embedded here.
Three institutions maintain present-day GIS representations of historical demarcation lines. Select a source to request its real coordinates, compare only the area that overlaps, and inspect the differences. No coordinates are fabricated, no line is visible before retrieval, and this comparison cannot itself authenticate a 1949 treaty annex.
The ministry’s CountriesBorder layer distinguishes “West Bank, Israel — Armistice Lines (1949–1967)” from the 1995 Gaza delimitation and later Syrian arrangements. This request filters to the West Bank–Israel record.
Inspect original official layer ↗GeoMOLG’s HistoricalPalestine_02 service uses Palestine 1923 grid coordinates. The request asks ArcGIS to transform its polyline to WGS84 before comparison.
Inspect original official layer ↗An independently maintained UN humanitarian mapping layer with a documented partial geographic extent. Northern armistice sectors are outside this specific service’s recorded extent.
Inspect original UN layer ↗Two institutions publish geographic representations of the Green Line: the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government’s GeoMOLG mapping platform and the United Nations humanitarian mapping service. Inspect them independently, see only the lines that a source actually returns, and review what the records cannot establish. Historical village markers are retained throughout the comparison.
Palestinian Ministry of Local Government mapping initiative. The original GIS service uses the Palestine 1923 grid (EPSG:28191); the comparison requests WGS84 output from the service itself. This is a modern mapped representation, not a scanned 1949 treaty annex.
Inspect the GeoMOLG source metadata ↗UN humanitarian ArcGIS polyline layer, published in WGS84. Its recorded coverage reaches approximately 31.205° to 32.567° north, so it cannot by itself document the northern armistice sectors.
Inspect the OCHA source metadata ↗Geographic reference plot (longitude/latitude), not a political boundary map. A dotted gold line represents the OCHA source; a solid turquoise line represents GeoMOLG. Empty layers indicate that their actual geometry has not been retrieved.
In 1949, separate armistice agreements followed the war. Follow their original UN records, examine the limited geographical services available today, and test actual line-coordinate exports in your browser before treating them as data that can be displayed on the map. A demarcation line must retain the historical meaning specified in its agreement.
This is a geographical-coordinate plot, with latitude increasing upward, not an historical border map. The village markers remain present at every documentary stage. If a line appears, the caption will identify its actual provenance and whether its coordinates passed structural validation.
An ArcGIS service offering a GeoJSON endpoint does not by itself verify that we obtained its coordinates or that the coordinates match its treaty annex. This reader-side tool allows inspection of an actual export without uploading the file to a server.
No geographic geometry loaded. The original records remain accessible above.
| Source record | What the record does and does not prove |
|---|---|
| Original UN agreements | Authenticates treaty date, parties, and legal characterization; boundary positions require the appropriate annex maps. |
| UN GIS services | Provides contemporary coordinate data within stated coverage and mapping limitations; provenance and historic conformity still require scrutiny. |
| Imported local JSON | Can be checked for coordinate structure and published extent. Its origin cannot be independently certified from the file alone. |
Two separate United Nations-hosted geographic services document different 1949 sectors. The first is an OCHA Green Line dataset covering part of Palestine. The second is a Lebanon armistice sector represented in a UN cartographic reference service. Their published coverage can be examined here, while the 1949 agreements and full-period maps remain available as original documents.
The rectangles show only the maximum and minimum published coordinates of the respective data services. They are not armistice demarcation lines. Both services are separate from the proposed 1947 partition map. Dashed linework, where present, is obtained from and structurally checked against the selected service at runtime, subject to its own mapping disclaimers.
The nine tiny point symbols can also be selected through the named locality dropdown. The dots represent reference positions only, not an agreed boundary.
The map below plots nine independently indexed Palestinian locality coordinates. It distinguishes dated historical documents from the extent of the geographic dataset available to draw them. The rectangle displayed for the 1949 record is a bounding box of source coverage, never a political border or a claim about a village’s legal status.
Schematic plot in WGS84 longitude and latitude, intentionally without modern or historical political boundaries. The source footprint is an axis-aligned geographic envelope. It is not the actual line and does not establish whether a locality lies along that line.
Source interpretation: the original 1947 UN map identifies the proposed states, an international arrangement for Jerusalem, and a separate record of Jewish land possession in June 1947. Those should not be conflated. An OCHA 1949 data layer covers only its listed bounding coordinates; an absent feature cannot be interpreted as proof that a community did not exist. The plots and labels can be inspected without downloading external map tiles.
Compare a proposal made by the United Nations in 1947 with the armistice demarcation recorded after the 1948 war. Examine the historical location of nine Palestinian communities alongside either documentary layer. The reconstructed 1947 polygons are third-party research data whose correspondence to the original UN map has not been independently established.
General Assembly Resolution 181 and its Annex A map are the documentary reference. The separately hosted polygon service was created in 2018 with no original source acknowledged. Its features are suitable for exploratory visualization only.
Open original UN proposal map ↗OCHA publishes a polyline called “1949 Armistice Green Line,” with a published bounding box spanning 31.2046°–32.5669° N. Eight of the nine documented villages in this preview lie outside that bounding box. This is a partial geographic dataset, not every sector of the 1949 armistice agreements.
Inspect OCHA GIS layer ↗1945 recorded residents: 2,550. The marker indicates the village reference point; it is not a cadastral boundary or individual property claim.
Open underlying locality record ↗The base map is ready to initialize. Neither boundary dataset is loaded. Use the controls to request the original source service.
Method: these sources describe different kinds of geography. Modern locality points, proposed 1947 political units, and the 1949 military demarcation must not be read as interchangeable evidence of land ownership or sovereignty. Source-server geometry is checked for structure before rendering; this does not independently authenticate its original survey accuracy. Missing service responses leave the map unaltered.
Explore four distinct documentary moments. The archival plates change as you move through time; the historical linework is displayed only when its institutional source and date are identified. The 1947 plan was proposed and never implemented as drawn. The 1949 armistice lines were military demarcations without prejudice to eventual territorial settlements. The occupation beginning in 1967 is a different historical and legal category.
Remote archival plate unavailable. Its catalogue and original document links remain below.
A General Assembly plan proposed partition and a special international regime for Jerusalem. The UN map used here was produced in 1956 to illustrate the proposal of 1947.
When available, an official OCHA West Bank Green Line feature layer can be overlaid on the main atlas map. Its published extent covers a West Bank section; it cannot represent every 1949 armistice boundary in the region.
Explore the original Survey of Palestine sheet index through documented geographic footprints, with source links to the scanned maps. A village may be named on a sheet covering several settlements. The footprint shows the area of a sheet and the village's documented locality point. It does not show historical sovereignty or ownership boundaries.
Hosted externally in the source project's linked archive. Image delivery is not yet verified for this prototype.
Examine the source sheet register ↗The map can display Palestine Open Maps' historic raster-tile series alongside the geographic reference points. The 1870s series and the 1940s Survey of Palestine series come from different surveys. Neither represents the borders of a sovereign state for the entire era.
The historical tile address is sourced to OpenHistoricalMap's April 2026 usage discussion. The historical tiles are supplied by their original map publisher. The linked original records document the dates and sources of the surveys; the tiles should not be interpreted as surveyed political boundaries. Source project and attribution ↗
Begin with the villages as they were known before 1948. Select a community to locate its historic site, inspect the reported depopulation date, and open the underlying evidence. Figures are explicitly labeled by their source and measurement date.
Date conflict, Dallata: Palestine Open Maps assigns 30 October 1948; a secondary village table labels 10 May 1948, but the detailed PalQuest village reconstruction places the likely occupation after Safad fell on 10–11 May, probably later in May, without a precise verified date. All dates remain qualified pending primary-record confirmation.
The precise geometry of historic land parcels requires original survey sheets and documented georeferencing. Until that is completed, points identify approximate village sites and the interface does not draw speculative ownership polygons or invented refugee routes. Any projection, estimate, or source disagreement remains visible.
Examine Palestine Open Maps ↗Palestine Land Society village database ↗This contemporary data point is drawn directly from a dated United Nations field survey. The April 2026 publication reports an observation from December 2025; the atlas must retain both dates.
OCHA reported 925 permanent or intermittent movement obstacles in its December 2025 field assessment, published 23 April 2026. Its analysis said the figure was 43% above the prior twenty-year annual average.
Read the complete UN fact sheet ↗The chapters follow historical sources documenting Palestinian communities and changes in political authority, including disputed or incomplete records where those distinctions affect the interpretation.
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The Survey of Palestine compiled this motor map in 1940, revised it in October 1945, and reprinted the version shown here with minor road revisions in January 1947. The scanned reprint records roads and places during the British Mandate; the 1947 printing date is not the date of the October 1945 revision.
UWM catalogue for the October 1945 map ↗Each highlighted footprint comes from the digitized Survey of Palestine index. Choose a Palestinian community to locate its recorded point within the geographic coverage of an actual historical map sheet and open the original scan reference. The boxes describe catalogued sheet coverage, not political sovereignty or property ownership.
Select any locality marker to inspect its map-sheet record. The large 1946 scale footprint for Qisariya is accurately larger than individual 1:20,000 sheets.
Index Palestine Open Maps: survey sheet metadata (pinned GitHub blob). Historic government sheets described by Palestine Open Maps; all original image deliveries, sheet dates, and place labels require individual facsimile checks. Indexed sheet locations are not georeferenced border evidence.
Advance through the records for 25 Palestinian places from December 1947 to October 1950. The map keeps every community visible. Changes in the symbols show when a gazetteer assigns an end date to a locality, with documented contradictions shown separately. The symbols do not represent the removal of every resident, actual routes of flight, or confirmed political borders.
Keyboard and assistive technology: choose any of the 25 named localities in the chronology list below. The small plot marks remain available for pointer exploration.
Open underlying locality record ↗
Navigate the actual documentary sequence before comparing Palestine’s maps. The 1947 boundaries represented proposals. The 1949 lines emerged from four separate military armistice agreements. A much later United Nations map illustrates the difference. None of these original maps has yet been verified as a georeferenced polygon in this atlas.
Research limitation: original treaty/map links were verified, but their raster originals and complete institutional GIS features have not been downloaded and independently compared here. The 25 Palestinian communities remain visible elsewhere in this atlas; their individual experiences cannot be inferred from these agreement dates.
The UN committee examined different constitutional futures in 1947. Its majority recommended partition with economic union; its minority recommended a federal state. The General Assembly later recommended a partition plan. These are documentary proposals and recommendations, not three sets of political borders that actually came into force. Compare their records below.
The Palestinian Monetary Authority's public geographic layer distinguishes these cartographic categories. Its service uses the Palestine 1923 grid; this preview has obtained metadata, not original feature coordinates. Their presence in the GIS legend does not establish the precise historical boundaries of any 1949 armistice agreement.
No territorial polygons from this source have been loaded into the historical animation. Actual features must be retrieved, reprojected carefully and compared against contemporaneous map annexes before publication as historical geography.
Follow the documentary life of Palestine’s proposed partition and the armistice arrangements that came afterward. An original map records what its authors proposed or agreed to at a particular time; a later reproduction may show those same years without being contemporary to them. These distinctions matter before anyone draws an animated boundary.
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The original maps are archival evidence, not ready-made coordinates. This historical-map reference tool prepares an auditable link between pixels on a chosen map scan and independently checked ground-control locations. The image remains on your device; it is not uploaded to either publication. Nothing calculated here is automatically accepted as a historical boundary.
Not an authoritative territorial layer. A low numerical residual only shows how well the chosen control points fit this transformation. Source authenticity, correct dating, projection, map reproduction, independent control-point verification, distortion, and historical interpretation require separate review. No estimated boundary is exported.
On the image, click a known identifiable landmark to fill the next pixel coordinate. Confirm its longitude/latitude independently before pressing Add control point. The actual map's dimensions and GCPs are written to the JSON audit.
No original scan or control points have been authenticated.
UN Map No. 96 (Nov. 1947); UN Map No. 103(b) (Nov. 1947); GDAL ground-control-point affine fitting; QGIS Georeferencer documentation.
Coordinates are converted to Web Mercator for the first-order least-squares fit. Projected residuals are not physical ground-survey error. Independent source authenticity and ground-point review remain mandatory. Outlier rejection is never automatic. Inferred polygons and land claims are excluded.
Explore dated Survey of Palestine scans alongside their archival catalogue records. The scans predate the 1948 displacement of many communities. A scan's recorded date and public-domain listing are evidence about the document, not proof of a boundary or property claim. Nothing in this viewer treats map-sheet footprints as political lines or automatically registers an image to coordinates.
Image catalogue evidence comes from Wikimedia Commons and the original Survey of Palestine. Remote previews are optional and untested for production delivery; no original image binary is reproduced in this documentary edition. For authoritative map registration, use the separately documented ground-control-point tool above with independently verified locations.
The archive publishes a SHA-1 checksum, an exact byte count and image dimensions for each of three original Survey of Palestine scans. Use the image verification desk to check a downloaded original JPEG. The file stays on your device: nothing is sent to either publication or to Google Drive.
An exact checksum match helps rule out accidentally substituted or recompressed files. It is not a security guarantee, proof of historical provenance, proof of a cartographic boundary, or evidence of a completed upload to Google Drive. The selected file must be independently placed in the authorized evidence archive before publication.
The El Majdal listing remains excluded from checksum verification until its exact file page is confirmed. Each original can be obtained from its Wikimedia Commons source record.
Resolution 181 described its proposed borders through village boundaries, roads and district limits. This interactive locator connects thirteen places named in the written description to independently catalogued settlement reference points. The dots are not the partition border: settlement centres are not cadastral outlines, and the original resolution was a recommendation, not an implemented territorial settlement.
Original UN text of Resolution 181 · U.S. State Department archival reproduction (FRUS) · November 1947 UN Map 96 catalogue
The proposed boundaries were written in the language of village lands, roads, towns and subdistrict divisions. This reference atlas traces where those named places are located, not where any political boundary ran. Select a region to inspect original place records alongside the 1947 text.
Settlement-centre reference points only. Points are not to be connected into a proposed border.
Original UN Resolution 181 text · U.S. State Department archival reproduction (FRUS) · November 1947 UN Map 103(b) record
Follow original United Nations map identifiers instead of relying on a reproduction’s publication-page date. A 1947 proposal, a January 1948 presentation and a 1956 reprint can depict related plans while representing different original records. No selected map here is certified as a geographic polygon or proof that the 1947 proposal came into effect. The 12 May 1949 Lausanne Protocol is separately labelled as a diplomatic reuse of proposed 1947 allocations, with its own 1949 date and no verified map binary.
Map numbers are institutional identifiers, not coordinates, chronological identifiers of territorial control, or evidence of state borders.
May 1949 documentary comparison: the UN Conciliation Commission attached a 1:750,000 map of the November 1947 proposed Arab and Jewish state allocations to its Lausanne Protocol. This was a basis for discussion, not an enacted border. The associated refugee and property provisions and the delegates’ reservations require separate documentary treatment. The original map image is not in this archive.
Palestinian refugee participation in the 1949 consultations: the UN Conciliation Commission’s third progress report says it met with representatives of refugees, specifically mentioning the Congress of Refugees of Ramallah and the Jaffa and District Inhabitants Committee. The Commission distinguished eventual questions of return, resettlement and rehabilitation from immediate measures to safeguard refugee rights and property. These meetings do not establish that the named refugee organizations signed the 12 May protocol, that their views were adopted, or that the safeguards were implemented. UNCCP third progress report, A/AC.25/PR.3 UNCCP A/927 protocol and Annex C U.S. contemporaneous telegram of 12 May 1949
Map-identity limit: Mark Ethridge’s 12 May 1949 telegram describes the map used in the negotiations as showing the proposed Jewish State, Arab State and international Jerusalem zone but states that the map itself was not labelled “plan of partition.” The telegram also records reservations communicated by the Israeli delegation, including preservation of its right to express its position on outstanding issues. The physical Annex C sheet has not been acquired; the absence of a reported legend label cannot authenticate or identify its precise printed edition. Contemporaneous U.S. State Department document
Signing the 12 May 1949 protocol and being consulted about displacement were different forms of participation. The records below preserve the positions advanced by Palestinian refugee organizations and the Commission’s recorded replies. Claims to represent all refugees, figures for property losses and proposed remedies are classified as the speakers’ statements, not treated as independently verified outcomes.
UN document identifier: A/AC.25/SR/LM/11
Evidence class: UNCCP contemporary meeting summary recording refugee representatives’ presentation
Recorded participants: Aziz Shihadeh, M. N. Hawwari, Nassib Bulos, Zaki Barakat
Document account: The Commission met a delegation of the General Refugee Congress one day after the Lausanne Protocol. Hawwari described urgent refugee concerns, while Bulos rejected the assumption that Arab states or another body could speak for the refugees whom the Congress said it represented. The Commission discussed a proposal for assessment of refugee property and recorded questions concerning separated families.
Limits of what this proves: The Congress’s claim to be the sole legitimate representative was its asserted position, not a verified election result or formal Commission determination. This was a meeting, not participation in signing the 12 May intergovernmental protocol.
Read original UN-hosted recordUN document identifier: A/AC.25/Org/26
Evidence class: Primary statement submitted by three refugee organizations and preserved in UNCCP records
Recorded participants: M. Hawari, Said M. Beidas, Choukri Tasi Bey
Document account: Three organizations requested copies of records, fuller consultation and regular information on negotiations and the preservation of displaced persons’ rights and property. They claimed independent representative authority and criticized decisions made without their participation.
Limits of what this proves: This primary memorandum establishes the organizations’ requests and self-description, not a census of all refugees or demonstrated authority to speak for every displaced person. It is not proof that any requested procedural rights were granted.
Read original UN-hosted recordUN document identifier: A/AC.25/SR/LM/35
Evidence class: UNCCP contemporary summary of a meeting with refugee-organization representatives
Recorded participants: M. Hawari, Representatives of refugee organizations, UNCCP commissioners
Document account: Hawari objected that refugees had not participated in technical assessments concerning orange groves and blocked accounts. He advocated an individual choice about return and compensation, with refugee participation in decisions affecting property and resettlement. The Commission acknowledged the concerns, but de Boisanger disputed his characterization of a technical report that the Commission said had not yet been circulated.
Limits of what this proves: The document records the representatives’ case and the Commission’s response, not independent verification of the groves’ condition, property valuation, final entitlement, or implementation of the proposals.
Read original UN-hosted recordSource families: both the Commission’s meeting records and the refugee memorandum are contemporary primary evidence, but the meeting records share UNCCP editorial custody. The independently reported diplomatic map observations come from the U.S. Foreign Relations telegram; none authenticates a particular map image, property parcel or completed repatriation.
Primary sources: UN Map 103(b) · UN Map 111 · 19 November 1947 committee map annex · 26 January 1948 UN map inventory
The 1949 Egyptian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Syrian armistice agreements describe different geographic and military arrangements. Browse their registered texts, original cartographic annexes, and modern secondary GIS metadata. A map mentioned in an original agreement is evidence of the annex, but it is not a georeferenced file in this archive until its original bytes have been acquired and tested.
The record IDs distinguish initial communications, revised map issues, original treaty annexes and contemporary GIS.
Legal records and related map images: Jordan S/1302/Rev.1 · Syria S/1353/Rev.1 map · Syria Annex I coordinates · Egyptian Gaza–Rafah description
The original 1949 armistice agreements did not produce one undifferentiated border. Inspect accessible documentary copies of the northern and southern Palestine map, Jerusalem’s separately identified survey, and the Syrian Houlé sheet. The 1950 Egyptian–Israeli local arrangement has its own text and two missing signed map sheets. Each item below says precisely what can and cannot be concluded from it.