Jerusalem is Israel's largest city, with a jurisdiction of 126,000 dunam and 732,000 residents, according to Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) figures for 2006.

Some 469,000 (64 percent) of Jerusalem's residents are Jews, compared to some 239,000 (32 percent) Muslims and some 14,700 (2 percent) Christians.

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In the War of Independence, some 83,984 people lived in the western part of the city. In 1967, following the Six-Day War and the city's unification, its population grew by 66,000, reaching 266,300. In 1975 Jerusalem became Israel's largest city.

The natural growth rate among the highly concentrated ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab communities in Jerusalem is much higher than the national average. In 2006, 19,600 babies were born in Jerusalem, 13 percent of the babies born in Israel. In recent years, an average of 6,000 left the city annually, almost half of them aged 20 to 34. The number of working residents in Jerusalem was 45.2 percent in 2006 compared to 48.6 percent in 1996, and compared to the 55.6 percent national average. The number of unemployed people in last year was 9.4 percent compared to 8.4 percent nationwide.