SAMARIA (ἡ Σαμαρεῖτις). — One of the three historical regions of Palestine, in the center of the plateau, bounded by the Jordan to the east, the coastal plain of Sharon to the west, and the plain of Esdrelon to the north. The southern boundary with Judea shifted frequently, according to political vicissitudes.
The name, which before the Exile was applied to the territory of the Northern Kingdom (II Reg. 10:32; 15:29; 17:28; II Par. 25:13), after the capital and the Kingdom had been destroyed designated the inhabitants of the Assyrian province of Samarina, and later of the district of Semaraja. At first it included within its territory the villages of Bethel, Bethoron, and Jericho, but after the return of the Jews from the Exile it lost the toparchies of Aphairema (= et-Tajjibeh), Lydda, Ramathaim (Remis), and Acrabattene along its southern boundary.
According to Flavius Josephus (Bell. Ind., III, 3,4), S. began north of the village of Ginea (= Genin), on the southern edge of the plain of Esdrelon, belonging to Galilee, and extended southward as far as the toparchy of Acrabatta (= el-ʿAqrabeh). Elsewhere, however, the same writer (Vita, 14) indicates Casaloth (= Iksal) as the southernmost point of Galilee, thus leaving the plain of Esdrelon outside the boundaries, the domain of Berenice, who possessed granaries there (Vita, 24). Probably the plain remained divided between Galilee and S. by the historic river
Cison (Nahr el-Muqattaʿ), touching the boundary of the territory of Scitopoli (= Bejsān) to the northeast and Phoenicia to the northwest at the point of Anuar-Borcaeus (Bell. Ind., III, 3,3), corresponding to ʿAjn Berqit between Caesarea and Dora. The boundary with Judea to the south was constituted, according to the same author (Bell. Ind., I, 6, 5), by a line which, starting from Antipatris (Qalʿat Rās el-ʿAjn), went up along the Wādī Dejr Ballū as far as Ḥirbet Berqit; from there, heading toward el-ʿOrmeh, it descended to Corea (= Qarāwah), and then followed the Wādī Fārʿah to the Jordan, which from the Wādī Mālib to the Wādī Kefringī constituted the eastern side, while the western side rose from the Nahr el-ʿAwāqā to the Nahr ez-Zerqā. These boundaries remained almost unchanged until the time of the Arab conquerors, who moved the southern boundaries of the district of Nābulus south of Lubbān and Sejūn.
The region is a massif that continues with the mountains of Judea. The highest elevations are between 700 and 900 m., exceeding 1000 m. only at Tell ʿAsūr (1011 m.) near the eastern edge; to the west, however, the group, once known as the “mountains of Ephraim,” is less elevated. In the center of the region, Hebal (v.), today Gebel es-Slemijjeh (938 m.), and of Garizim, today Gebel et-Tōr (868 m.), face one another; between them lie the valley and plain of el-Mahnah, Sichem (v.) was situated, near which is modern Nābulus, with 20,000 inhabitants. Nearby was Jacob’s well, on the edge of which the Savior converted the Samaritan woman (Is. 4). Numerous wādī converge in the valleys to form the most important river of S., the Nahr el-ʿAwāqā, while to the east lies the Wādī Fārʿah.
Extensive cereal fields are found there. The region is traversed from north to south by the road that runs from Jerusalem through Genin, another important center of S. With the new political division of Palestine, Genin forms the northern boundary of the Kingdom of Jordan; the other east–west communication route, which leads from Nābulus to the coast, is interrupted at Tūl Karm, the frontier between Israel and Jordan.