The impact of boundaries on patterns of rural settlement: The case of Samaria (Israel)

The superimposition of the Jordanian-Israeli boundary line, in 1949, on the western and northern fringes of the Samarian Highlands, created a frontier zone in which the geographical characteristics of the rural settlements underwent rapid changes. These changes reflected two main trends. One, spontaneous uncontrolled consequent processes-on the Jordanian side of the frontier - such as de-population, with the development of anomalies in the demographic structure of the remaining population, transformation in the pattern of agriculture and other economic activities, changes in site and layout of villages as well as in their spatial organization. Two, on the Israeli side, a carefully planned and strictly controlled new spatial pattern of rural settlement with rapid increase in population, intensification and expansion of economic activities and conspicuous changes in the landscape. The examination and comparison of the effects of the newly formed border, with its extreme separation functions, under two contrasting political and administrative systems, presents an instructive lesson in Political Geography. So does the study of the geographical transformation processes which have been taking place in the same area since the removal, in 1967, of this boundary line.