Ramla, also known as ar-Ramleh, is a city in central Israel. It was founded in 716 AD by Umayyad governor Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, and its name means "sandy" in Arabic. It was the district capital of the local jund until the First Crusade, when the Crusaders took the town without a fight. The Crusaders identified the city as "Arimathea", and, by 1163, Ramla had a population of 300 Jews. By 1548, Ramla had 528 Muslim families and 82 Christian families, and it came to have 3,000 inhabitants by 1838 and 3,460 by 1869 (3,000 Muslims, 400 Greek Orthodox Christian, and 60 Catholics), 7,312 (5,837 Muslims, 1,440 Christians, and 35 Jews) in 1922, 10,347 (8,157 Muslims, 5 Jews, 2,194 Christians, and 2 Druze), 15,160 in 1946 (11,900 Muslims and 3,260 Christians). Ramla was captured by Israel on 12 July 1948 amid the Arab-Israeli War, and, by 2000, Ramla had a population of 635,000 Palestinian refugees. In 2001, 80% of Ramla's population was Jewish, 16% Muslims, and 4% Christians. In 2019, Ramla had a population of 76,246.
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