New municipality (Palestine)

In the Republic of Palestine, a new municipality, also commonly called a new town or new city depending on size, is any municipality within one of the 44 counties of Palestine incorporated after 1979. The vast majority of the new municipalities are either planned communities, or Israeli occupation-era settlements which were incorporated following the end of the occupation in 1979 after the Sinai War. Today, many of the new municipalities are modern, economically vibrant communities, home to mostly upper-middle class families who own businesses and/or property in the traditional urban areas of the country. At least half of them have a large Jewish minority; Ariel, the most populated new city in Palestine, is home to 189,000 people, about 35% of whom are Jews.