Map of the Middle East, Circa 1914
The region prior to the outbreak of World War I. After the war, modern Middle Eastern states had their borders arbitrarily drawn by European powers.
The maps presented below are only a few that could be used in learning and teaching about Israel and the Middle East.
CIE wishes to thank Aliza Cramer Elias and her team at the Institute for Curriculum Services for allowing CIE to promote the use of the maps that they produced, found here in English and in Spanish.
Diplomacy and war reflect the changing contours of states and borders along the evolution of Israel and the modern Middle East. We wish to thank the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for allowing us to use some of their published maps. Others were made for CIE use.
Max Fisher has assembled 40 maps of the Middle East from ancient times to the present, each with a brief introduction. This is a first-rate collection with almost no noticeable bias and with a devotion to accuracy.
In addition, Michael Izady’s collection, the Gulf2000 project, focuses on eight countries of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Izady also lists other map collections, including the Library of Congress, rich in historical items.
The University of Texas also has a fine collection of Middle East maps, most of them drawn from the public-domain collection created by the CIA.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides contemporary and historical maps of Israel and its neighborhood.
For Spanish-language maps, please click here.
For Hebrew-language maps, please click here.
Map of San Remo Agreement, 1920
The European agreement that identified the states of the Middle East, 1920.
Map of Palestine and Transjordan, 1922
When Britain controlled Palestine, she lopped off 80% of it and assigned it to the Hashemite family leader, Emir Abdullah. It became today’s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Map of Peel (Partition) Report for Arab and Jewish States, 1937
A map shows the partition of Palestine proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937.
Map of United Nations Partition Plan, 1947
The UN suggested partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an economic union between them and an internationalization of Jerusalem.
Map of U.N. Partition Plan, 1947
The United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 181 on Nov. 29, 1947, to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state along the lines in this map, with an international zone around Jerusalem.
Map of Israel’s 1949 Borders
This map shows the territories controlled by Israel, Jordan (including the West Bank(, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt (including the Gaza Strip) at the end of Israel’s War of Independence in 1949. An Arab state was not created in Palestine. Jordan annexed the West Bank, and Egypt maintained administrative control of the Gaza Strip. Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank in the June 1967 war.
Maps Comparing 1947 Palestine Partition Plan and 1949 Israeli Armistice Lines
The area of Israel expanded and the potential area for a Palestinian Arab state decreased because of the 1948-49 war, Israel’s War of Independence. The Arab rejection of the 1947 U.N. partition plan thus hurt the Arab side, as the maps demonstrate.
Map of Israel’s Armistice Lines, 1949-1967
In the aftermath of the 1948 War of Independence, Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These armistice lines lasted until the immediate aftermath of the June 1967 War. Israel has 1068 kilometers in land borders. Egypt 208 km, Gaza Strip 59 km, Jordan 307 km, Lebanon 81 km, Syria 83 km, and the West Bank 330 km; its Mediterranean coastline 273 km. CIA The World Factbook – Israel
Map of Israel After the 1967 War
With its six-day victory in the June 1967 war, Israel added the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank (Judaea and Samaria) to the territory under its control. Israelis moved into all of those areas over the next decade.
Map of Israel and the Occupied Territories, 1967
As a result of the June 1967 War, Israel increased its size seven fold to include Eastern Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Gaza Strip.
Allon Plan Map, 1967
Drafted by Minister of Labor Yigal Allon after the June 1967 war, the plan envisages Israeli retention of a series of settlements and military installations along the Jordan Valley as buffers to a potential Arab land attack from the east.
Map of Israeli-Egyptian Separation of Forces Agreement, January 1974
For Sadat, who had gone to war against Israel three months earlier, securing a military disengagement agreement was important. In addition, diplomatically engaging the US to secure the agreement meant entrenching Washington as a friend of Egypt. The US embraced the opportunity to quell tensions between Israel and Egypt, while squiring Cairo away from decades of Moscow’s embrace. Israel had its POWs returned and slowly tested Sadat’s broader intentions toward Jerusalem.
Map of Golan Heights After Israeli-Syrian Separation of Forces Agreement, May 1974
In the last days of the June 1967 War Israel secured a portion of the Syrian Golan Heights, estimated at 1300 sq km or 500 sq mi; Israel forces sit some 40 miles, 60km from Damascus. Before the June War, Israeli villages and populations in the valley were fired upon by Syrian forces from the Heights. In addition to being an important catchment for Jordan River waters which helps supply Israel’s water needs, the heights contain not fully explored hydrocarbon sources. In the northern Heights is Mt. Hermon which has strategic value for observing military movements into southern Lebanon and to Damascus.
Map of Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, March 1979
To test Egypt’s intentions, Israel took eight years, from January 1974 to April 1982, to withdraw from virtually all of Sinai.
Map of Regional Boundaries After the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, 1979
Under the 1979 peace treaty, Israel withdrew completely from the Sinai, abandoning settlements and oil fields, by 1982. But Egypt did not reclaim the Gaza Strip, which it had controlled from 1948 to 1967.
Map of Israeli Settlements on the Golan Heights, July 1989
After Israel secured the Golan Heights in the June 1967 War, the Israeli government offered to negotiate its return, some 1300 km, for a peace treaty with Israel. Israel withdrew from a small portion of the Heights after the 1973 War. It continued to build Israeli settlements in strategic locations and in 1981 applied Israeli law to the area. Some 20,000 Israelis live there in 32 settlements, along with 20,000 Druze.
Map of Israeli West Bank Settlements, January 2005
As an unintended consequence of the June 1967 War, Israel found itself controlling the entire West Bank of the Jordan River, amounting to 2,300 square miles with 680,000 Palestinian living in 396 villages, towns and in portions of Jerusalem. From 1976 forward, the US and the international community in general have labelled the settlements as either“illegal” or as an “obstacle to peace.” The growth of the settlements or their expansion has occurred in a spatial manner that places Israeli settler populations in between Arab villages and towns in order to limit or prevent Arab contiguity in the West Bank.
Map of Jewish Settlements in Gaza, August 2005
From 1977 to 1979, the settler population in the territories grew from 3,200 to 17,500, plus 80,000 in East Jerusalem. Of the 225,000 Israel settlers in the “territories” in 2005, all 8,500 settlers living in Gaza (5% of the total) were evacuated with the area turned over to the Palestinian Authority. In 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections, and in 2007 the terrorist group conducted a coup and ousted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza.
Map of Regional Boundaries After Israel’s Disengagement From Gaza, 2005
This regional map shows Israel and its neighbors after the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, completed in 1982, and the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005.
Trump Peace Plan Map Showing Settlements and Solutions, 2020
This map shows the State of Palestine as proposed by the Trump plan with features and selected locations from the Washington Institute Settlements and Solutions website.
Mapping West Bank Settlements: Territorial and Political Uncertainties, 2020
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly declared that he will be putting forward his proposal for West Bank annexation as early as July 1. Yet uncertainties about his plans still abound, indicating that this timetable may not be met despite his assertions to the contrary.
Map of Afghanistan and the Middle Eastern Neighborhood, 2025
Courtesy of the University of Texas, Map Collection, https://maps.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
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