[3] The city is situated on the Umm al-Fahm mountain ridge, the highest point of which is Mount Iskander (522 metres (1,713 feet) above sea level), overlooking Wadi Ara.

Umm al-Fahm is the social, cultural and economic center for residents of the Wadi Ara and Triangle regions.

(663 H.), after Baybars won the territory from the Crusaders, the revenues from Umm al-Fahm were given to the Mamluk na'ib al-saltana (viceroy) of Syria, Jamal al-Din al-Najibi.

Describing the social fabric of the villages, scholars noted thatUmm al-Fahm’s rise to regional ascendancy began with the migration and settlement of the Hebron Aghbariyya, Mahamid, and Jabarin clans from Bayt Jibrin during the late 18th –early 19th centuries.

This population movement formed part of a significant wave of migration from Jabal al-Khalil (Hebron highlands) to the area of Jenin [...] The Mahajina, came to Umm al-Fahm from [the] Galilee, completing the village’s fundamental partition into four quarters (hārāt/hamāyil), each with their own headmen, guesthouses and allotments in the village’s common land (mushā‘).

[11]During the 19th century, Umm al-Fahm became the heart of the so-called "Fahmawi Commonwealth" - a network of communities connected by family, economic and political ties.

[11] In 1838, Edward Robinson recorded Umm al-Fahm on his travels,[12] and again in 1852, when he noted that there were 20 to 30 Christian families in the village.

[21] In the 1945 Village Statistics the population was estimated together with other Arab villages from the Wadi Ara region, the first two of which are today part of Umm al-Fahm, namely Aqqada, Ein Ibrahim, Khirbat el Buweishat, al-Murtafi'a, Lajjun, Mu'awiya, Musheirifa and Musmus.

[25] In addition to agriculture, residents practiced animal husbandry which formed was an important source of income for the town.

[citation needed] In October 2010, a group of 30 right-wing activists led by supporters of the banned Kach movement clashed with protesters in Umm al-Fahm.

[36] Because of its proximity to the border of the West Bank, the city is named very often as a possible candidate for a land-swap in a peace treaty with the Palestinians to compensate them for land used by Jewish settlements.

In a survey of Umm al-Fahm residents conducted by and published in the Israeli-Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab in July 2000, 83% of respondents opposed the idea of transferring their city to Palestinian Authority jurisdiction.

[37] The proposal by Avigdor Lieberman for a population exchange was rejected by Israeli Arab politicians as ethnic cleansing.

In 2007, the municipality granted the gallery a large plot of land on which the Umm al-Fahm Museum of Contemporary Art will be built.

[34] Green Carpet is an association established by the residents to promote local tourism and environmental projects in and around Umm al-Fahm.