It is located in a hilly region of the Lower Galilee at the base of the Carmel Mountains, and overlooks the Jezreel Valley.

Yokneam, known as Israel's "Startup Village," is home to a high-tech hub surrounded by forests and small communities.

In 1989, after Simon Alfassi was elected mayor, Yokneam Illit began to attract high-tech companies looking for an alternative to the Tel Aviv area.

[3] Over 100 high-tech companies now operate from Yokneam Illit, generating exports of approximately 5 billion US dollars annually.

[5] Yokneam appears in the list of 119 conquered cities by Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III after the victory in the battle of Megiddo (1468 BC).

Yokneam or Jokneam is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a city of Levites within the territory of the Israelite tribe of Zebulun (Joshua 12:1, 12:22, 19:10-11, 21:34).

Yokneam was built on the lands of a Palestinian Arab village named Qira, depopulated in the lead up to the 1948 Arab–Israeli war.

In July 1950, a tent camp (Maabara) was set up to absorb 250 new immigrant families and remained part of Yokneam Moshava until 1967.

[6][better source needed] In 1952, Yokneam was considered unusual in that it had a single school for all regardless of whether they were religious or secular, or from the moshava or the tent camp.

During this period, the economic problems of the Kibbutz and Moshav movements led many of the young families in the Megiddo Regional Council to move to nearby Yokneam Illit.

Today, it is extremely rare to find a local team representing only Yokneam Illit or only the Megiddo Regional Council.

The Partnership2Gether program, which partnered Yokneam Illit and the Megiddo Regional Council on the Israeli side, with the Jewish communities of Atlanta, GA and St. Louis, MO on the US side, helped institutionalize cooperation between the Yokneam Illit municipality and the Megiddo Regional Council.

[12] Examples of this cooperation can be seen in the activities of the Southeast chapter of the US-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, and the success of companies like Given Imaging Archived 2016-07-18 at the Wayback Machine.

Given Imaging, which began as a small startup in Yokneam Illit, leveraged its special relationship with the Southeast chapter of the US-Israel Chamber of Commerce when it opened its Marketing headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Yokneam's proximity to two major universities (Technion and University of Haifa, both in Haifa), location at the crossroads between northern Israel and the major urban areas of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, tax benefits and investment grants associated with its status as a "National Priority Area A", and its small town surroundings and lower cost of housing all worked together to attract Israel's highest concentration of R&D companies outside of Tel Aviv and give it the nickname of Startup Village.

Yokneam's industrial parks are home to more than 100 high-tech companies with exports of approximately 5 billion US dollars annually.

[13][14] The growth of the high-tech companies in Yokneam has attracted speakers and members of specialized professions, such as technical writers, to come from other parts of Israel to meet and exchange ideas.

In addition to technology-based industry, Yokneam has a number of production facilities, including Osem, which established a plant in Yokneam in 1974; and a boutique winery, Morad Winery, known for its special wines made from Pomegranates, Passion Fruit, Red Grapefruits, Coffee, Coconuts, Carub and many other fruits.

In 1997, the facility doubled in size and three production lines were installed for baked goods such as crackers, biscuits, cookies and pretzels.

Roughly two-thirds of the land within Yokneam's city limits are green space (parks, archeological digs, gardens, playgrounds).

One of the main stations of the new railway line, being in operation from 2016, from the Jordanian border to the port of Haifa is located only 5 minutes from the Yokneam's high-tech parks.

[36] The Environmental Protection Ministry (Israel) awarded a number of Yokneam's kindergartens and elementary schools the “green label” because of the way they integrated study of the environment into the local curriculum.

The campus will have sports halls, day care centers, kindergartens, elementary and high schools, and academic courses prior to IDF enlistment.

The subscription series with 8 different performances a year from Israel's best-known theater companies has grown from one day of the week to five in order to accommodate a total audience of over 2,000, or 10% of its population.

The Jewish Federation subsidizes children's theater subscriptions for members of the Ethiopian community to bring their cost of a child accompanied by one parent down to 100 ILS (approximately US$30) for the entire series.

[44] MixArt is an amateur studio established in 2017 under the patronage of Yokneam's Department of Absorption and performing plays in Russian and Hebrew.

Despite its small size, Yokneam Illit is an ethnically diverse city, with immigrants from all parts of the world and their descendants and many active synagogues, each with its own special character.

Local teams compete in league for Basketball,[46] Soccer,[47] Baseball, Water Polo on YouTube,[48] and Bicycle Racing.

One of the local Kibutz' has donated the land necessary to build a new Baseball/Softball Stadium in conjunction with the Israel Softball Association and the Jewish National Fund.

In addition to the annual "Yokneam Walk", which attracts thousands of participants, the works closely with the Israel National Fund (Keren Kayemet) to further promote nature preservation.

As part of Yokneam's commitment to adopting green energy it will soon be one of the first two cities in northern Israel where electric buses will operate.