Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir

Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines - Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir is a cultural landscape in the West Bank recognised for its ancient terraces, irrigation networks and continuing agricultural practices. The site illustrates traditional mixed farming of olives and vines maintained over centuries.

The landscape is characterised by stone terraces cut into hillsides, dry-stone retaining walls and a system of channels and spring-fed cisterns that irrigate plots seasonally. The cultivated plots remain in small family ownership and display traditional cropping patterns and land use rather than large-scale commercial agriculture. Walking through the terraces and along the channels provides a direct experience of the agricultural systems and village layout.

The terraced landscape and irrigation appear in documentary and archaeological records dating back to the Roman and Byzantine periods and were adapted through the Ottoman era into the present day. Community management of water and land tenure has been a continuous element in the area’s agricultural history.

The site lies on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem in the West Bank, centred on the village of Battir and its surrounding hills, roughly a few kilometres southwest of the city’s built-up edge. The area is rural to peri-urban and accessible from nearby towns and Jerusalem.

• Terraces and irrigation: The property is centred on the village of Battir and its surrounding terraces and spring-fed irrigation system, which maintain traditional olive and vine cultivation using gravity-fed water channels.