PALESTINE LEARNING MAPS — 19 October 2026

Territorial scope and two-state framework
The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are distinguished from Israel.
The 1967 lines are a negotiating reference, with changes agreed by the parties;
these maps do not portray a negotiated final border or present effective control.
The UN treats these territories as occupied Palestinian territory. The map is not
a depiction of Areas A/B/C, settlements, barriers, military zones or crossing access.
Jerusalem's city pin marks East Jerusalem, in the Old City. Palestinians seek East
Jerusalem as their capital; Ramallah is an administrative centre. Jerusalem's status
remains unresolved. The Jerusalem governorate is distinct from Israel's district.

Governorates
geoBoundaries gbOpen PSE ADM2, boundaryID PSE-ADM2-87354302, 2017 reference,
Open Data Watch, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).
https://www.geoboundaries.org/api/current/gbOpen/PSE/ADM2/
https://www.geoboundaries.org/
https://opendatawatch.com/about/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The exact metadata/download URL is retained in scripts/palestine-admin-metadata.json.
The original snapshot is scripts/palestine-admin-source.geojson. The 16 areas
are 11 West Bank and 5 Gaza governorates. Upstream ADM2 reflects the source's
hierarchy (its ADM1 is the two territories), not a claim that governorates have
a different administrative status. Upstream underscores and asterisks in three
shapeISO values are normalised; names use readable English forms. Served geometry
is simplified by 0.0001 degrees with Turf, preserving separate features.

Cities and towns
Twenty curated representative coordinates in public/data/palestine-map-places.json.
These identify settlements, not municipal boundaries, entrances, safe destinations
or current population distribution. Gaza's war damage and displacement are not
represented by static city locations.

Waters
Natural Earth 5.1.2, 1:10m lakes and rivers, public domain.
https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/
The checked-in source is shared with scripts/israel-water-source.geojson.
The Jordan target is clipped to a lower-river reference window adjoining the
West Bank: [35.45,31.77,35.62,32.55]. It is not the whole river or a control line.
The Dead Sea uses the full shared lake reference outline, including areas beyond
Palestine's shore. Water levels, shorelines and southern basins have changed.
The Mediterranean target is a small hand-selected offshore rectangle west of Gaza:
[34.12,31.50,34.28,31.65]. It names the sea without drawing maritime claims or
territorial waters. None of these water targets assigns sovereignty.

Rebuild from the repository root: node scripts/build-palestine-maps.mjs
Editorial references: docs/palestine-guide-review.md