great impact on its growth. In the past, Tulkarm was a caravan station and a trading center for products from the city's surrounding villages and farms, as well as a point from which armies crossed to Egypt and the Levant (al-Sham). Tulkarm is at the crossroads of three historically important arteries: A road which runs north from the Latrun area along the edge of the coastal plain to Mount Carmel, Mount Tabor, Mount Gilboa, Nazareth and the Galilee and the Golan Heights, a road which winds northward along the outer tier of hills from the Ajalon valley to the Jezreel Valley, and a road that rises from the Mediterranean Sea at modern-day Netanya east to Nablus. In the past it was a junction of the coastal railroad from north of Haifa to Cairo and a branch of the narrow gauge Hejaz railway to Damascus. Demographics According to the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Tulkarm had a population of 3,350, consisting of 3,109 Muslims, 23 Jews, 208 Christians and 10 others. At the time of the 1931 census, Tulkarm had 804 occupied houses and a population of 4,540 Muslims, 1,555 Christians, 300 Jews, 100 Samaritans and 75 Druze. The census also listed "Tul Karm Suburbs" as having 516 Muslims, 15 Jews and 10 Christians. The populations of Tulkarm, Dhinnaba, Shuweikah and Irtah steadily increased by an average of 2% annually between 1931 and 1961, with a drastic increase after the 1948 War as the area experienced an influx of Palestinian refugees. The Jews presumably left/fled during the war. Following the 1967 War, the population saw a temporary decrease as some residents fled to Jordan. In the 1967 census by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics the population of Tulkarm city was recorded as 10,255, Tulkarm Camp as 5,020, Dhinnaba as 1,342, Irtah as 925, Shuweikah as 2,332 and Khirbet Jarrad as 128, a total of 20,002. Most of the inhabitants were Muslims, although there was a community of 103 Christians according to the census. In the first census by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 1997, Tulkarm had a population of 33,921 and the Tulkarm Refugee Camp had a population of 5,884. Palestinian refugees made up 31.4% of the city's residents and 94% of the camp's inhabitants. The sex ratio for the city was 50.7% male and 49.3% female. Over half (52.2%) of the