Tulkarm Governorate

The Tulkarm Governorate (محافظة طولكرم) is an administrative district and one of the 16 Governorates of Palestine, located in the north-western West Bank. The governorate's land area is 268 square kilometres. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the governorate had a population of 172,800 inhabitants. The muhafaza or district capital is the city of Tulkarm.

History
During the Ottoman period, the region later forming the Tulkarm Governorate belonged to Jabal Nablus. Like other regions of Nablus' peripheral hinterland, it followed the provincial center, led by a closely knit web of economic, social and political relations between Nablus’ urban notables and the city’s surroundings. With the help of rural trading partners, these urban notables established trading monopolies that transformed Jabal Nablus’ autarkic economy into an export-driven market, shipping vast quantities of cash crops and finished goods to off-shore markets. Increasing demand for these commodities in the Ottoman Empire’s urban centers and in Europe spurred demographic growth and settlement expansion in the lowlands surrounding Jabal Nablus.

In the 1860s, as part of the Ottoman Tanzimat, the area of Wadi al-Sha‘ir (Nahal Shechem) was incorporated into the Bani Ṣa‘b nahiya. Then, in the 1870s and 1880s, Bani Ṣa‘b was elevated into the level of a subdistrict with its qa’imaqam and municipal council administrated from Tulkarm.

Localities


The Tulkarm Governorate has 51 localities and two refugee camps (Tulkarm Camp and Nur Shams Camp). The towns and cities mentioned below have populations of over 1,000.

Municipalities

 * Anabta
 * Attil
 * Bal'a
 * Baqa ash-Sharqiyya
 * Beit Lid
 * Deir al-Ghusun
 * Qaffin
 * Tulkarm