 An Ottoman village list from about 1870 counted 78 houses and a population of 379, though the population count included men, only.In 1883, the PEF's "Survey of Western Palestine" described al-Walaja as a "good-sized" village built of stone.During the latter half of Ottoman rule, al-Walaja was the administrative seat of the Bani Hasan subdistrict ("nahiya") (which consisted of over ten villages, including al-Khader, Suba, Beit Jala, Ayn Karim and al-Maliha), and served as the throne village of the al-Absiyeh family.