Jericho, Palestine: From pilgrims to gamblers, a global oasis city always ‘on the map’

Jericho is a small Palestinian oasis city located on the far western border of the West Bank near the Dead Sea. As one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Jericho owes its existence to several springs that irrigate 10 km² of desert for agriculture. The mild winter climate and the abundance of fresh water have made Jericho a prime leisure destination for elites since antiquity, and under the Israeli occupation, Jericho has become a popular destination for wealthy Palestinians to spend weekends. Since the Oslo Agreement (1993), efforts have been made to leverage the longstanding status of Jericho as a leisure destination to create a ‘Las Vegas on the Dead Sea'. For nearly two millennia, Jericho has also attracted religious pilgrims due to its role in events described in the New Testament. In this article, we provide an overview of Jericho's urban history, introduce key issues and actors in Jericho's contemporary urban context and some of the main urban challenges facing Jericho, and highlight the ways in which Jericho, despite its small size and seemingly remote location, can be understood as a ‘global city’ that has been ‘on the map’ since antiquity.