Forty-three percent of East Jerusalem residents - 184,300 people - are Jewish, and 57 percent Arab, according to figures to be released Thursday by the Jerusalem Center for Israel Studies.

The study was released to coincide with the start of a lecture series marking the fortieth anniversary of the city's unification.

From 1967 to 2005, Jerusalem's Arab population has grown from 68,600 to 244,800 - an increase of 257 percent.

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During the same period, the Jewish population grew by just 140 percent - from 197,700 in 1967 to 475,000 in 2005.

The relatively slow growth rate among the Jewish population has led to a decline in its share of the city's population. From 74 percent in 1967, this figure was 66 percent in 2005.

The Arab population, meanwhile, rose from 26 to 34 percent.

Population forecasts in Jerusalem indicate that if demographic trends continue, the capital's population will rise to 958,900 in 2020 - 60 percent Jews and 40 percent Arabs.

An annual comparison of the growth rate of the two populations shows the Jewish growth rate higher than the Arab only six times between 1967 and 2005.

The years of high growth occurred in the 1970s, as large-scale building projects were carried out in Jewish neighborhoods, and in the 1990s during the massive absorption of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The report indicated that the government targets for Jerusalem's Jewish population have not been reached.

In the early 1970s, the government estimated that the Jewish population had to grow by 3.7 percent a year to maintain the demographic majority.

In the past four decades, however, the Jewish population grew by an average of only 2.7 percent annually.

The average rate of population growth among Arabs during the same period was 3.4 percent.

The large Jewish neighborhoods established in areas attached to the city in 1967 are Pisgat Ze'ev (population approximately 41,000), Ramot (40,000), Gilo (27,000), Neve Yaakov (20,000), Ramat Shlomo (14,000), and East Talpiot (12,000).

The largest Arab areas of East Jerusalem are Shuafat (34,000), the Muslim Quarter of the Old City (26,000), Beit Hanina (24,000) and A-Tur-Aswana (22,000).