Eco Index
67of 100
Passable
Passable
067100
In Asia3rdof 12
Worldwide38thof 77
Twelve equally weighted public-data pillars
Destinations / Asia / Palestine
Palestine.
Eco Index67/100Passable
The West Bank and the Gaza Strip: 6,025 km² of land, 64.93% agricultural and 87.38% urban. Six World Heritage sites and nine inscribed living traditions, read alongside severe water stress and a fast-changing electricity mix.
Every figure sourced · World Bank · PCBS · UNESCO · 2021–2026
Ali.batha · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Eco Index · 38 of 77
At a glance
The Eco Index, taken apart.
Not a tourism badge. The Eco Index is the equal-weighted total of twelve public-data pillars. The headline number stays compact; every ingredient sits directly beneath it.
12scored pillars
Wins on · 3 regional wins
Culture, heritage and whole-food eating
All score 5/5 and tie for first place in Asia.
Lowest on
Water and wildlife
Water scores 1/5 and ranks 10th in Asia. Wildlife scores 2/5 and ranks 11th.
1WaterCritical
2WildlifePoor
3ConservationFair
3EnergyFair
3PollutionFair
4FoodGood
5CultureExcellent
5HeritageExcellent
5Whole-food eatingExcellent
4FibresGood
3OrganicFair
2RecyclingPoor
The record beneath the score
History, held in the landscape.
A settlement stood beside the spring at Jericho in the ninth millennium BC. The modern record runs through the Nakba of 1948 and, since 2012, six World Heritage inscriptions.
UNESCO · Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics · sourced in the full report
Tell es-Sultan
A permanent settlement, wall, ditch and tower beside the spring at ancient Jericho.
The Nakba
A rupture still visible in the national population record and the worldwide diaspora.
Six sites.
Nine living traditions.
Nine living traditions.
“The rare listing that protects a farming system rather than a monument.”
Battir · inscribed 2014
2012
Bethlehem becomes Palestine’s first World Heritage inscription.
2008 onward
Nine living practices are inscribed, from the Hikaye to embroidery, Dabkeh, Nabulsi soap and Arabic kohl.
2025
Sebastia becomes the sixth listed site.
Nature and biodiversity
A living landscape, still worked.
Forest covers 1.68% of the land. Protected areas cover 10% of the land and none of the sea. The defining landscape is farmed rather than wild: terraces, olives and vines.
How protected is nature?
The headline is small. The context is not.
World Bank · 2023 and 2025
21 threatened
Species in the open record
The number is a warning, not a complete inventory. Each species below is named from specimen-backed records rather than treated as endemic without evidence.
What is being held
Terraces, irrigation and continued use
Battir protects a working agricultural system. The landscape remains valuable because it is cultivated, repaired and passed on.
Species to know
Recorded here, named carefully.
AH
Ammoperdix heyi
Sand partridge recorded in Palestine through specimen-backed GBIF records.
LS
Levantina spiriplana
A land snail of the Levant, recorded in Palestine in the open biodiversity record.
HE
Helix engaddensis
A regional land snail first described in 1852 and present in specimen-backed records.
BT
Battir terraces
The strongest conservation story is a living cultural landscape rather than a fenced reserve.
Water
The binding constraint.
About 165 cubic metres of renewable internal freshwater are available per person. 41.23% of the resource is already withdrawn. On the UN scale, this is severe water stress.
Freshwater per person
165 m³ each year
The UN water-scarcity line is 1,000 cubic metres per person.
Distance from the scarcity line
Only 16.5% of the benchmark
World Bank · 2021 and 2024
How hard is supply being pushed?
Four of every ten refill units are already taken.
41.23% of renewable freshwater is withdrawn.
Explore the pressure scale
Move the withdrawal level.
This tool explains the threshold. Palestine's recorded value remains 41.23%.
LowModerateSevereCritical
41% withdrawnSevere stress
Food and health
What grows here, and what arrives.
Olives occupy 85% of the horticultural tree area. Food imports provide 30.9% of dietary energy. The plate follows the land: olive oil, wheat, pulses, za'atar and vegetables.
Where food comes from
30.9%imported
Seven of ten bites remain.
The blue share represents the food energy not imported.
How often it is on the plate
The dominant tree crop, with olives covering 85% of the horticultural tree area.Olive oil
Health pressure
68.8% of adults
Living with overweight or obesity
Non-communicable diseases account for 64.84% of deaths. Diabetes affects 15.5% of adults.
Can the land feed itself?
64.9%Agricultural land
7.0%Arable land
5.52%Agriculture GDP
Water comes before acreage.
The amount of agricultural land looks high, but water availability sets the practical limit.
Climate, energy and AI
What powers the grid.
Renewables supplied 24.46% of electricity in 2021. Electricity access reached 100% in 2024. Any machine, home or data centre here still runs mostly on fossil power.
Electricity mix
24.46% renewable75.54% fossil
Every 100 units used by a home, hotel or computer inherit this same grid mix.
Access
100%
Access to electricity, World Bank 2024.
Water abstraction
The climate issue already felt.
Only 165 cubic metres per person are renewable, and 41.23% is withdrawn.
Waste
Collection is ahead of recovery.
Collection reaches 79% of households, while recycling depends largely on private operators.
Air
22.39 μg/m³ PM2.5
The 2023 World Bank measure is slightly worse than the 1990 record.
Economy and tourism
What the land still earns.
Palestine recorded about 93,000 visitors in the latest annual series and a 2025 GDP of US$17.2 billion. Agriculture is a smaller share of output than its physical footprint suggests.
Visitors
93 thousand a year
The visitor economy sits beside six World Heritage sites and nine living traditions.
Gross domestic product
17.2 billion US dollars
Recorded for 2025.
Agriculture
5.52% of GDP
Employment in agriculture is 6.34% against 64.93% agricultural land.
The export story
575,200 dunums under olives.
Olives occupy 85% of the horticultural tree area. The crop supports kitchens, exports and the cultural landscape itself.
The value question
Keep the margin close to the maker.
Olive oil, embroidery and Nabulsi soap are credible purchases because the value is grown, stitched or made here.
Visiting Palestine
Arrive with a lighter footprint.
The useful question is not whether a trip can be perfect. It is whether the choices made on the ground protect water, working landscapes, craft and local ownership.
Season guide
Choose a month to read the landscape.
The olive harvest links visitors to the working landscape.October · Harvest
Already booked?
The rescue list.
Practical swaps that retain value locally
Buy the olive oil here
Buying at source keeps more of the margin with growers rather than shippers.
Use water like a resident
Water is the one resource a visitor can measurably take from a severely stressed supply.
Buy inscribed craft
Choose Palestinian embroidery made by hand, not a printed imitation of it.
Walk the terraces
Battir exists as heritage because it remains cultivated. Visiting supports the reason it is protected.
Society and daily life
A young, urban and highly literate society.
Palestine's population reached about 5.6 million at the end of 2025. Nearly nine in ten people live in urban areas, adult literacy is 97.94% and life expectancy is 69.21 years.
Population
5.6 million people
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, end of 2025.
Urban population
87.38%
The share has nearly doubled since 1960.
Adult literacy
97.94%
World Bank, 2024.
How life reads in the data
Choose a measure.
80.64% of people use safely managed drinking water services.Water
The lived contrast
Universal electricity. Scarce water.
Access to the grid reaches the whole population, but safely managed drinking water reaches 80.64% and renewable freshwater remains only 165 cubic metres per person.
100%Electricity
80.64%Safe water
69.21Life years
Culture
Kept alive by use.
Nine practices are inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage lists. The record runs from Hikaye storytelling to embroidery, Dabkeh, Nabulsi soap and Arabic kohl.
Nine living traditions
9
Practices carried forward
Storytelling, embroidery, calligraphy, date-palm knowledge, metal engraving, Dabkeh, soap making, henna and kohl.
2008
Hikaye
The storytelling tradition begins Palestine's intangible heritage record.
2021
Embroidery
Stitched knowledge becomes part of the formal UNESCO record.
2023 to 2025
Dabkeh, soap and kohl
Living practices continue to enter the record rather than stopping with monuments.
The future
Run the measured trends forward.
These are not promises. Each card begins with a recorded first value and ends with the latest available result.
Trend record
Swipe through the evidence.
+12%
Forest cover
1.51% in 1990 to 1.68% in 2023.
24.5%
Renewable electricity
0% in 2000 to 24.46% in 2021.
+19%
Protected land
8.4% in 2017 to 10% in 2025.
-60%
Freshwater per person
410.46 m³ in 1990 to 164.95 m³ in 2021.
+98%
Urban population
44.18% in 1960 to 87.38% in 2025.
+68%
Diabetes
9.2% of adults in 2011 to 15.5% in 2024.
Worst case
The terraces lose the water that holds them.
The olive landscape weakens as freshwater per person continues to fall and the strongest heritage asset becomes harder to cultivate.
Current path
Real gains, held back by one hard limit.
Renewable electricity and protected land improve, while water availability, agricultural employment and diet-related disease move in the wrong direction.
Best case
Lift recycling, hold the terraces, protect more land.
The credible route uses systems that already exist: household collection, a working agricultural landscape and a formal 30% protection target.
Government and commitments
The promises, beside the present result.
Palestine is a semi-presidential republic under the 2003 Basic Law, revised in 2005. Mohammad Mustafa is Prime Minister. The Palestinian Legislative Council is unicameral, and its last election was held on 25 January 2006.
Executive
Mohammad Mustafa
Prime Minister of the State of Palestine.
Legislature
One chamber
Palestinian Legislative Council. Last election: 25 January 2006.
Constitutional record
2003 and 2005
The Basic Law was adopted in 2003 and revised in 2005.
2030 land target
10% protected now
One third of the way to 30%.
2030 sea target
0% protected now
The 30% target has not started.
Living heritage commitment
9 traditions inscribed
Safeguarding remains active.
The record continues through 2025, including embroidery, Dabkeh, Nabulsi soap and Arabic kohl.
Landscape commitment
2014
Battir placed on the World Heritage List.
The commitment protects terraces, irrigation and continued cultivation as one working system.
Rankings
Third in Asia. Thirty-eighth worldwide.
The same twelve-pillar system is used for every destination. These lists show the context around the score rather than treating 67 as a number in isolation.
Asia
1Sri Lanka75
2India72
3Palestine · this page67
4Thailand67
5Vietnam67
Worldwide
1New Zealand80
2France78
3Peru78
10St Vincent and the Grenadines75
38Palestine · this page67
The data directory
Every figure, laid out.
A compact evidence ledger for readers who want the raw result without losing the source and year.
Forest cover1.68%World Bank · 2023
Protected land10%World Bank · 2025
Protected sea0%World Bank · 2025
Renewable electricity24.46%World Bank · 2021
Fossil electricity75.54%World Bank · 2021
Freshwater per person165 m³World Bank · 2021
Freshwater withdrawn41.23%World Bank · 2021
Safe drinking water80.64%World Bank · 2024
Agricultural land64.93%World Bank · 2023
Urban population87.38%World Bank · 2025
Adult literacy97.94%World Bank · 2024
Electricity access100%World Bank · 2024
Olive tree area85%PCBS · 2020/21
World Heritage sites6UNESCO · 2012 to 2025
Living traditions9UNESCO · 2008 to 2025
The Throne Standard
Twelve pillars. One shared scale.
Every destination is scored the same way. No self-declared data and no brochure claims are accepted. Each figure carries its source and year.
Land and sea actually protected, not pledged.
What survives, what is threatened and what is lost.
Freshwater per person and the ocean's health.
Whether the place can feed itself.
Certified land and pesticide reality.
Emissions and how the grid is powered.
Where rubbish goes and what comes back.
What people eat and die of.
Living culture and what the law keeps standing.
Who owns the economy and where value stays.
Freedom, honesty and promises kept.
Measured trends run forward.
Sources
Where the numbers come from.
Public institutions, open datasets and named heritage records. The source list changes with the country, but the requirement to show it does not.
World Bank
UNESCO
PCBS
IUCN
Protected Planet
WHO / UNICEF JMP
FAO
Our World in Data
GBIF
UN SDG
Ember
WRI Aqueduct
Every figure on this page, and where it came from
Population, land, energy, water, health and economic series are drawn from the World Bank. Palestine-specific population and agricultural records use the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. World and living heritage counts use UNESCO. Species examples use specimen-backed GBIF records. The production page should link every citation to the exact source table or record.