[1] Hadera was established in 1891 as a farming colony by members of the Zionist group, Hovevei Zion, from Lithuania and Latvia.

[2] Hadera was founded on 24 January 1891, in the early days of modern Zionism by Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Latvia on land purchased by Yehoshua Hankin, known as the Redeemer of the Valley.

[8] About half a year after it was founded, rabbi Ya'akov Goldman reported on an event in "the moshav of Hadere, that is, Hatzor".

[10][11] In the end of the nineteenth century, the region of Hadera was populated by three immigrant groups – Circassians, Bosnians and Russian Jews.

These transnational colonists joined what was, in Roy Marom's words, "a sparsely populated coastal plain inhabited by Arabic-speaking highland peasants and nomads of Turkmen, Nubian, Egyptian and of Arabian-Peninsular descent".

Marom further notes that in 1871 Ottoman authorities inspected Khirbet al-Khudeira, and found it 'empty of inhabitants and lacking resident peasants who are eligible to purchase it in return for the payment of land registration fees".

[12] Baron Edmond James de Rothschild's surveyor, Yitzhak Goldhar, claimed that Hadera was founded on the site of the former town called Gedera of Caesarea (Hebrew: גדרה של קיסרין), as mentioned in Tosefta Shevi'it, ch.

In 1896 Baron Rothschild paid for "hundreds of black labourers" from Egypt "to dig the broad and deep trenches" needed to drain the swamps.

[18] Therefore, a Bible verse from the Psalms (Tehillim) was inscribed in the city's logo: "Those who sow in tears, will reap with songs of joy."

[13] In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Hadera had a total population of 540; 89 Muslims, 1 Christian and 450 Jews.

[20] After the 1948 War, the north-western part of Hadera (including "Newe Chayyim") expanded on the land which had belonged to the depopulated Palestinian village of Arab al-Fuqara.

Hadera is 50 miles (80 km) south of the Lebanese border and marked the farthest point inside Israel hit by Hezbollah.

[28] In the 2000s, the city center was rejuvenated, a high-tech business park was constructed, and the world's largest desalination plant was built.

[2][29] New neighborhoods are under construction in the underdeveloped northeastern part of the city, and plans are under way for a large park, shopping malls and hotels with a total of 1,800 rooms.

The city is envisaged as a future vacation destination due to its closeness to the Galilee, beaches, and access to major highways.

[30] Hadera is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastal plain, 45 km (28 mi) north of Tel Aviv.

[2] Hot water gushing from the Hadera power plant draws schools of hundreds of sandbar and dusky shark every winter.

[36] According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Hadera had a population of 540 inhabitants, consisting of 450 Jews, 89 Muslims and 1 Christian.

The Technoda, an educational center for science and technology equipped with a state-of-the-art telescope and planetarium, is located in Hadera's Givat Olga neighborhood.

Neighborhoods of Hadera include Givat Olga,[41] Beit Eliezer, Kfar Brandeis, Haotzar, Hephzibah, Neve Haim, Nissan, Ephraim, Bilu, Klarin, Nahaliel, Shimshon, Shlomo, Pe'er, Bialik, Beitar and The Park.