The approximately 2,270-square-mile (5,900-square-km) area is the centre of contending Arab and Israeli aspirations in Palestine. Within its present boundaries, it represents the portion of the former mandate retained in 1948 by the Arab forces that entered Palestine after the departure of the British. The borders and status of the area were established by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of April 3, 1949. Pop. (2006 est.) 2,697,000.

Geographically, the West Bank is mostly composed of north-south–oriented limestone hills (conventionally called the Samarian Hills north of Jerusalem and the Judaean Hills south of Jerusalem) having an average height of 2,300 to 3,000 feet (700 to 900 metres). The hills descend eastwardly to the low-lying Great Rift Valley of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The West Bank does not lie entirely within the drainage system of the Jordan River, as elevated areas in the west give rise to the headwaters of streams flowing westward to the Mediterranean Sea.

Annual rainfall of more than 27 inches (685 mm) occurs in the most highly elevated areas in the northwest and declines in the southwest and southeast, along the Dead Sea, to less than 4 inches (100 mm). Widely variable land-use patterns are dictated by the availability of water. Relatively well-watered nonirrigated terrain in the hills (especially those of Samaria) is used for the grazing of sheep and the cultivation of cereals, olives, and fruits such as melons. Irrigated land in the hills and the Jordan River valley is intensively cultivated for assorted fruits and vegetables.

The industrial development of the West Bank was never strong during the Jordanian period, and by the mid-1960s there were less than a dozen industrial establishments with more than 30 employees in the area. Israeli occupation resulted in constraints on West Bank industrial development; investment capital remained scarce both in the West Bank and Gaza, and only the transportation infrastructure saw much improvement after 1967. This improvement occurred mostly for military reasons, although it also benefited agriculture by facilitating the supply and servicing of markets.

The principal Palestinian municipalities of the West Bank are Janīn, Nāblus, and Ramallah north of Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Bayt Laḥm) and Hebron (Al-Khalīl) south of Jerusalem. Jericho (Arīḥā) is the chief municipality of the Jordan River valley. Several small universities on the West Bank (founded or attaining university status in the 1970s) enroll mostly Palestinian students.

Many Palestinians were displaced after the 1948 and 1967 wars. About 300,000 Palestinians (most of whom were originally from territory captured by Israel in 1948) left the impoverished West Bank for Transjordan (later Jordan) during the year after the 1948 war; and about 380,000 Palestinians fled the West Bank after it was captured by the Israelis in 1967. Between 1967 and 1977 an estimated 6,300 Palestinians were evicted from East Jerusalem and replaced by Jewish immigrants, and many others lost their residency rights under the 1992–96 government of Benjamin Netanyahu (Netanyahu, Benjamin).

Upon the departure of the British occupying forces in May 1948 and the proclamation of the State of Israel, the armies of five Arab countries entered Palestine. In the ensuing conflict—the first of the Arab-Israeli wars—Israel expanded beyond the territory contemplated by the partition plan. The West Bank, as demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949, was broadly similar to (but smaller than) one of the zones designated as an Arab state by the United Nations (UN) partition plan for Palestine in 1947. According to that plan, Jerusalem was to have been an international zone. However, the city was instead divided into Israeli (west) and Jordanian (east) sectors. The Arab state whose creation was envisioned by the 1947 UN partition plan never came into being, and the West Bank was formally annexed by Jordan on April 24, 1950, although this annexation was recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan.

From 1950 until it was occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, the West Bank was governed as part of Jordan, though it was divided from the Jordanian population of the East Bank by the Jordan River. The relationship between the East and West banks was uneasy, both because of Palestinian suspicions of the Hashemite (Hāshimite) dynasty and because of the aspirations of Palestinians in the West Bank for a separate state. The web of relationships connecting the two halves of Jordan grew during this period, however, and by 1967 the West Bank represented about 47 percent of Jordan's population and about 30 percent of its gross domestic product.

During the 1967 war, Israel occupied the West Bank and established a military administration throughout the area, except in East Jerusalem, which Israel incorporated into itself, extending Israeli citizenship, law, and civil administration to the area. During the first decade of Israeli occupation, there was comparatively little civil resistance to Israeli authorities and very little support among Arab residents of resistance activity.

This period of relative calm began to wane during the late 1970s and early '80s as Israel began a more aggressive course of establishing settlements. By the early '80s the settlements numbered in the scores, and in the early years of the 21st century the West Bank settlements numbered more than 100, permeating most of the region. Land, businesses, and buildings were expropriated from the Arab inhabitants, many of whom were long absent, having fled the wars of 1948 and 1967. During the administration of Menachem Begin (Begin, Menachem) (1979–83), the number of Israeli settlements more than tripled, and the number of Israeli settlers increased more than fivefold. Israeli claims of a right to administer land in the West Bank not cultivated or privately owned (a category that might amount to between 30 and 70 percent of the West Bank, depending on the definitions adopted) gave rise to suspicions that Israel intended ultimately to annex the area piecemeal.

Throughout the 1970s and '80s the issue of Israeli rule over the West Bank Palestinians remained unresolved. Israel regarded possession of the West Bank as vital to its security, and the growing number of Israeli settlements further stiffened Israeli unwillingness to relinquish control of the area. At the same time, the chief political representative of the West Bank Palestinians, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), refused to negotiate with Israel and, until 1988, was unwilling to recognize Israel's right to exist; Israel refused to negotiate with or recognize the PLO for years after that date.

In 1988 Jordan's King Ḥussein (Ḥussein) renounced all administrative responsibility for the West Bank, thereby severing his country's remaining connections with the area. Meanwhile, anti-Israeli protests broke out among the Arabs of the West Bank in December 1987 and became virtually a permanent feature of West Bank life for the next few years, despite the Israeli army's continued attempts to suppress the disorders.

As a result of secret negotiations begun in April 1993, Israel and the PLO reached agreement in September on a plan to gradually extend self-government to the Palestinians of the West Bank (and Gaza Strip) over a five-year period prior to a final settlement of the issue of Palestinian statehood. Under the plan, Israel's civilian and military administration would be dissolved and the Israeli army withdrawn from populous Arab areas. In the West Bank the plan's actual implementation began in May 1994 with the Israelis' withdrawal from the town of Jericho and its environs. By 2000 the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled less than one-fifth of the West Bank, while Israeli occupation (in some areas, combined with PA local administration) continued in the remainder.

In 2006 parliamentary elections, Fatah—an influential force in Palestinian politics since its foundation by Yāsir ʿArafāt (Arafāt, Yāsirʿ) in the 1950s—suffered a decisive loss to Ḥamās, reflecting years of dissatisfaction with Fatah's governance, which was criticized as corrupt and inefficient. The victory of Ḥamās, a group that was regarded by many as a terrorist organization, resulted in sanctions and boycotts from Israel, the United States, and the European Union. In 2007, with violence escalating in the Gaza Strip and the failure of a coalition government, PA president Mahmoud Abbas (Abbas, Mahmoud) dissolved the Ḥamās-led government and established in its place an emergency cabinet favouring Fatah. The increasingly violent power struggle between Ḥamās and Fatah resulted in a split between the West Bank, run by Fatah through the emergency PA government, and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Ḥamās. Israel and other members of the international community moved to aid the West Bank, offering shows of economic and diplomatic support for Abbas and Fatah while cutting aid to the Gaza Strip.