'God's Height'[6][7]) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the de facto administrative capital of the State of Palestine.

It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, 10 km (6 miles) north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of 872 meters (2,861 ft) above sea level, adjacent to al-Bireh.

The Haddadins (ancestors of the present-day Jadallah family, among others), and their leader Rashid el-Haddadin, arrived from east of the Jordan River from the areas of Karak and Shoubak.

It paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on wheat, barley, olives, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives; a total of 9,400 akçe.

[20] In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described Ramallah as A large Christian village, of well-built stone houses, standing on a high ridge, with a view on the west extending to the sea.

[22] In 1700, Yacoub Elias was the first Ramallah native to be ordained by the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the Christian denomination that prevailed in the Holy Land at the time.

In 1901, merchants from Ramallah emigrated to the United States and established import-export businesses, selling handmade rugs and other exotic wares across the Atlantic.

[citation needed] In the 21st century, a large community of people with direct descent from the Haddadins who founded Ramallah live in the United States.

In the 1920s, the economy of Ramallah started to improve, resulting in the local Arab upper class (consisting primarily of landowners and merchants) ordering the construction of several multi-storied villas, many of which still stand today.

One British schoolteacher noted that the Ramallah court judge began to produce "news sheets on typewriters and duplicators, aimed at publicizing the alternative rebel regime.

[citation needed] During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel captured Ramallah from Jordan, imposing a military closure and conducting a census a few weeks later.

The Israeli Civil Administration (CA), established in 1981, was in charge of civilian and day-to-day services such as issuing permission to travel, build, export or import, and host relatives from abroad.

The CA was in charge of tax collection and land expropriation, which sometimes included Israeli seizure of olive groves that Arab villagers had tended for generations.

[34][35] According to the Israeli Human Rights activists, the development of Jewish settlements in the Ramallah area, such as Beit El and Psagot, prevented the expansion of the city and cut it off from the surrounding Arab villages.

The Intifada Unified Leadership, an umbrella organization of various Palestinian factions, distributed weekly bulletins on the streets of Ramallah with a schedule of the daily protests, strikes and action against Israeli patrols in the city.

[citation needed] The Israelis conducted house arrests, imposing curfews that restricted travel and exports in what Palestinians regarded as collective punishment.

On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat shook hands at a meeting at the White House.

Ramallah and its immediate environs were classified as Area A in the Oslo Accords, under full civil and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) administration in September 1995.

[40][41] The Israel Defense Forces remained in control of the territories and its government did not restore the freedom of movement enjoyed by Ramallah residents prior to the first Intifada.

A Palestinian passport issued to Ramallah residents was not valid unless the serial number was registered with the Israeli authorities, who controlled border crossings.

Over time, the marches were replaced by sporadic use of live ammunition against Israeli soldiers; and various attacks targeting Jewish settlers, particularly on the Israeli-only bypass roads.

Israel later succeeded in capturing and prosecuting some of those involved in the deaths of the reservists.The IDF has occasionally operated inside Ramallah, in breach of the 1995 Oslo Accords.

[65] The Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company has a stake in Rawabi, a completely new town being constructed in the hills outside Ramallah at a cost of $1 billion.

In January 1987, the first open-heart surgery was performed at the Hospital under the direction of Dr. Shehadeh (Shawki) Harb, a Palestinian surgeon trained in the United States.

Another is the First Ramallah Group, a boy- and girl-scout club that also holds a number of traditional dance (Dabka) performances and is also home to men's and women's basketball teams that compete regionally.

Until the 1940s, a woman's economic status, whether married or single, and the town or area they were from could be deciphered by most Palestinian women by the type of cloth, colors, cut, and embroidery motifs, or lack thereof, used for the robe-like dress or "thoub" in Arabic.

Though experts in the field trace the origins of Palestinian costumes to ancient times, there are no surviving clothing artifacts from this early period against which the modern items might be definitively compared.

[90][91] Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian costumes reflected a woman's economic and marital status and her town or district of origin, with knowledgeable observers discerning this information from the fabric, colours, cut, and embroidery motifs (or lack thereof) used in the apparel.

The headdress or smadeh worn in Ramallah was common throughout northern Palestine: a small roundish cap, padded and stiffened, with gold and silver coins set in a fringe with a long veil pinned to the back, sometimes of silk and sometimes embroidered.

Many foreign nations have located their diplomatic missions to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, including, as of 2010[update], Argentina, Australia, Austria, Korea, South Africa, Norway, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, China, Poland, Portugal, The Netherlands, Russia, Jordan, Brazil, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, India, Japan, the Czech Republic, Canada and Mexico.