Yatta (city)
| Yatta | ||
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| Other transcription(s) | ||
| • Arabic | يطّا | |
| • Also spelled | Yattah (official) | |
Mosque in Yatta
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 Yatta
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| Coordinates: 31°26′52″N 35°05′24″E / 31.44778°N 35.09000°ECoordinates: 31°26′52″N 35°05′24″E / 31.44778°N 35.09000°E | ||
| Palestine grid | 163/94 | |
| Governorate | Hebron | |
| Government | ||
| • Type | City | |
| • Head of Municipality | Khalil Younis | |
| Area | ||
| • Jurisdiction | 133,080 dunams (133.0 km2 or 51.4 sq mi) | |
| Population (2016) | ||
| • Jurisdiction | 64,277 | |
| Name meaning | from Juttah | |
| Website | www.yatta-munc.org | |
Yatta or Yattah (Arabic: يطّا) is a Palestinian city located in the Hebron Governorate in the West Bank approximately 8 km south of the city of Hebron in the West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 64,277 in 2016.
Located on a large, ancient hilltop, Yatta has been identified with the site of the Biblical town of Juttah. In 1931, a Jewish burial complex dating to the 2nd century AD was found in the town .Eusebius (4th century) wrote that Yatta was "a very large village of Jews eighteen miles south of Beit Guvrin." Some Palestinian residents of the town believe they originate from the Jewish kingdom of Khaybar in the south-western Arabian peninsula and are descended from the Jewish tribes of Arabia. Research by Yitzhak Ben Zvi in 1928 also suggested that three out of the six extended families in Yatta belonged to the "Mehamra" group and possibly descended from an Jewish Arab tribe.
Yatta, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596 the village appeared to be in the Nahiya of Halil of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 127 families, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, goats and bee-hives.
In 1838, Edward Robinson passed by, and noted that Yatta had the "appearance of a large modern Mohammedan town, on low eminence, with trees around."
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