For millions of Christians, Nazareth is one of the most beloved places in the world: the city where, according to the Gospels, the Virgin Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of Jesus, and where he spent his childhood and youth before beginning his public life. That is why it is called 'the city of the Annunciation', and its great church, the Basilica of the Annunciation —one of the largest churches in the Middle East—, stands over the grotto that tradition identifies as Mary's house. It draws pilgrims from across the planet and is the Christian heart of Galilee.
But Nazareth is much more than a holy site: it is the largest Arab city in Israel and a leading cultural, commercial and political centre for Arab Israelis, with a population that mixes Muslims and Christians. That dual identity —Christian sanctuary and living Arab city— is tangible as you walk its old town: churches of several denominations and a mosque almost next door to each other, the bustle of the souk with its spices, sweets and soaps, the cafés where people play cards, and the aroma of bread and Arabic coffee. This guide treats the city and its significance with respect and neutrality, in a region with a complex and sensitive history.
Here we tell you how to make the most of your visit, with a practical approach: which churches and corners to see in the old town, how the open-air museum recreating the village of Jesus' time works, how to dress to enter the holy sites, how much everything costs, how to get around a city that rests on Sunday instead of Saturday, and how to use Nazareth as a base for discovering Galilee: Cana, Sepphoris, Mount Tabor and the Sea of Galilee. A city to explore slowly, with one eye on sacred history and the other on everyday life.
In Jesus' time Nazareth was a small Galilean village of just a few hundred inhabitants, much smaller than neighbouring, prosperous Sepphoris. Christian tradition hallowed it as the place of the Annunciation and of Jesus' childhood, and as early as the Byzantine period (4th-7th centuries) the first churches were built here. During the Crusades, Nazareth became the capital of a Christian principality in Galilee, until in 1263 the Mamluk sultan Baybars took it and its Christian community suffered greatly. Under the Ottoman Empire, the city revived above all in the 18th century, when the local ruler Zahir al-Umar allowed Christians to return and settle, and the city grew with European convents and missions. In the 20th century it became part of the State of Israel, created in 1948, and today it is the country's largest Arab city, with a Muslim majority and a significant Christian minority. We tell that whole story, neutrally and with sources, on our history page.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
It's hard to imagine that one of the most famous place names in the world belonged, two thousand years ago, to a tiny and unimportant village. And yet it did. In the 1st century AD, when according to the Gospels Jesus lived here, Nazareth was a small farming settlement in the hills of Lower Galilee, with perhaps a few hundred inhabitants: stone and mud-brick houses, cisterns, wine presses and silos cut into the rock, fields of olive trees, vines and grain. It isn't even mentioned in ancient Jewish sources or in the Hebrew Bible; it was such a modest place that in the Gospel of John itself one character sceptically asks whether anything good can come out of Nazareth.
The contrast with its surroundings was striking. Barely six kilometres away stood Sepphoris (Tzipori), a rich and populous city, the capital of the region, which at the time was being splendidly rebuilt in Greco-Roman style. Nazareth lived in its shadow, as a village of farmers and craftsmen. That humble character fits the Gospel picture of Jesus's childhood in a working family, with Joseph the carpenter.
For the Christian faith, this village is the setting of a pivotal moment: the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will be the mother of Jesus. Nazareth is also where, according to the Gospels, Jesus grows up, learns a trade and, as an adult, is rejected by his own neighbours when he preaches in the synagogue. From an obscure village to the cradle of one of the world's great religions: that is the extraordinary leap Nazareth made. It's worth remembering that much of what we know about that Nazareth comes from the Gospel accounts and from archaeology, and that the history of this period moves between faith and fact.
During the first few centuries, Nazareth remained a mostly Jewish town in Galilee, of no particular note. Its transformation into a Christian pilgrimage site was gradual and picked up pace from the 4th century, when the Roman Empire became Christian and the 'rediscovery' of the holy places of the Holy Land began, driven by pilgrims and by the imperial court (this was when Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, promoted the identification of sites linked to the life of Jesus).
In the Byzantine era (4th to 7th centuries) the first churches were built in Nazareth over the venerated sites: that of the Annunciation and others associated with the Holy Family. The town began to receive Christian pilgrims, although for a long time it kept a significant Jewish population. Travellers' accounts from the period already mention its shrines. And so, layer upon layer, the sacred Nazareth we know today took shape: each later church was built on the foundations of the one before, on the very spot marked by tradition.
With the Muslim conquest of the region in the 7th century, Nazareth came under Islamic rule, like the rest of Palestine. The town remained a place of Christian worship and coexistence, in a land where from then on the three great monotheistic religions would permanently meet.
The Middle Ages brought Nazareth one of its most intense periods, and also one of its most tragic. When the Crusaders conquered the Holy Land at the end of the 11th century, Nazareth rose to prominence again: the Norman Tancred made it the capital of a Christian principality in Galilee, and a great church was built over the site of the Annunciation. The town filled with clergy, pilgrims and buildings, and once again became a leading Christian centre in the East.
That splendour was fragile. As the Crusades ebbed and Muslim powers advanced, Nazareth changed hands several times. The final blow came in 1263, when the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, Baybars, took the town and its Christian population suffered violent repression, with massacres and the destruction of its churches. For generations, Nazareth was once again reduced to a modest place marked by insecurity, with a much-diminished Christian presence.
This back-and-forth —Christian heyday in the Crusader era, destruction in the Mamluk era— left the town, over the following centuries, as a small settlement where the memory of its shrines barely survived. Nazareth would have to wait for the Ottoman era to be reborn.
After the Ottoman conquest of the region in the 16th century, Nazareth remained a small town for some time. Its great revival came in the 18th century, thanks to a powerful local ruler of Galilee, Zahir al-Umar, who controlled much of the north of present-day Israel almost autonomously. Zahir al-Umar encouraged security and trade in his territory and, crucially for Nazareth, allowed and encouraged Christian communities to return and settle and to rebuild their churches.
With that push, the Franciscans —custodians of the holy places— and other Christian orders and denominations (Greek Orthodox, Melkites, Maronites, later also Protestants and others) went on to build churches, convents, schools and pilgrim hostels. Nazareth became a pilgrimage centre once more and a thriving Christian town within the religious mosaic of Ottoman Galilee, though always alongside its Muslim population. In the 19th century, with the boom in European pilgrimages and missions, the town grew and gained institutions that still operate today.
Much of today's old town dates from that Ottoman era —its stone houses, its alleys, the souk— as do monuments such as the White Mosque, from the late 18th century, conceived as a symbol of tolerance between the communities. The Nazareth that travellers explore today, with churches of many denominations and a mosque at the heart of the old town, is largely the heir of that revival.
The 20th century completely transformed Nazareth's political setting. After the end of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, the region came under the British Mandate for Palestine. In 1948, with the war that followed the creation of the State of Israel, Nazareth ended up within the borders of the new state. Unlike many other Arab towns, it was not depopulated: it kept its Arab population and also took in many people displaced from surrounding villages, which made it grow considerably. This is a sensitive period, still the subject of differing accounts and interpretations —Israeli and Palestinian— which this guide tries to present neutrally and with respect for all sides.
In the following decades, a neighbouring town with a Jewish majority grew up beside historic Nazareth on the surrounding hills: Nazareth Illit (now called Nof HaGalil), so the area today is home to two separate municipalities. Historic Nazareth, for its part, became established as the main centre of Israel's Arab population.
Today Nazareth is the largest Arab-majority city in the country, with around 75,000 inhabitants, and is seen as a kind of cultural, commercial and political 'capital' for Arab citizens of Israel. Its population is mostly Muslim, with a large and highly visible Christian minority (around a third). That coexistence, centuries old though not free of tension, shows in the cityscape: the great Basilica of the Annunciation and dozens of churches of different denominations alongside mosques and the bustle of the souk.
For travellers, Nazareth offers a double experience: that of the pilgrim following in the footsteps of Jesus's childhood at the holy sites, and that of the visitor discovering a living Arab city, with celebrated food, a cultural scene of its own and a history of centuries of mixing. In a region shaped by an underlying conflict that remains unresolved, Nazareth invites you to come with curiosity, sensitivity and respect for all its communities.
