Israel is located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded on the north by Lebanon, on the northeast by Syria, on the east and southeast by Jordan, on the southwest by Egypt, and on the west by the Mediterranean Sea (see fig. 1). Before June 1967, the area composing Israel (resulting from the armistice lines of 1949 and 1950) was about 20,700 square kilometers, which included 445 square kilometers of inland water. Thus Israel was roughly the size of the state of New Jersey, stretching 424 kilometers from north to south. Its width ranged from 114 kilometers to, at its narrowest point, 10 kilometers. The area added to Israel after the June 1967 War, consisting of occupied territories (the West Bank--see Glossary--and the Gaza Strip) and annexed territories (East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) totaled an additional 7,477 square kilometers. The areas comprised the West Bank, 5,879 kilometers; the Gaza Strip, 378; East Jerusalem, 70; and the Golan Heights, 1,150.

Data as of December 1988

NOTE: The information regarding Israel on this page is re-published from The Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Factbook. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Israel GEOGRAPHY information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Israel GEOGRAPHY should be addressed to the Library of Congress and the CIA.