The Chronological Timeline of Palestine
This page traces how the name “Palestine” entered history, who used it, and why it changed meaning over time. Unlike native terms such as “Land of Israel” or “Judea,” the word “Palestine” was introduced by outside powers and later expanded for political and administrative reasons. Below is a documented sequence from Egyptian mentions of the Philistines, to Greek geographic labels, to the Roman imperial renaming that tried to erase the name Judea.
About this timeline
This timeline is designed to show that the word “Palestine” did not originate as an ancient self-identifier of the people in the land, but as a series of external designations applied by Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and later Islamic and European administrations. For a companion view that tracks the peoples, kingdoms, and empires in the same territory regardless of the name used, see the general regional timeline.
Pre-Palestine terminology and early names of the land
Long before the appearance of the word “Palestine,” the territory at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean was identified by names tied either to its peoples or to its covenantal significance. In the Hebrew Bible, the land is called Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), Canaan, or later Yehudah / Judea, reflecting the Israelite kingdoms and then the Jewish kingdom centered on Jerusalem. These names were internal — they came from the people living there and from their historical memory.
Outside sources recorded other groups in the area, but in a much narrower sense. Egyptian inscriptions from the reign of Ramesses III (c. 1150 BCE), particularly those at Medinet Habu, mention a seafaring group called the Peleset. Modern scholars widely connect the Peleset with the later Philistines, who settled along the southern coastal plain — roughly today’s Gaza–Ashkelon–Ashdod belt. Crucially, this was not a name for the entire land, and it did not include the highlands, Jerusalem, or the older Israelite heartland. It was the name of a coastal people subdued by Egypt.
Hebrew texts reflect the same narrow scope: the Israelites referred to these coastal neighbors as the P’lishtim (Philistines), and to their territory as Philistia. Stories in Samuel and Judges place them in five main city-states — Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath — a small strip on the coast, not a country spanning the Jordan Valley or Galilee. That means that even when a word related to “Philistia” existed in the local languages, it never functioned as the overarching name of the whole land.
At the same time, the Jewish/Judean designation of the territory as the Land of Israel persisted in religious, historical, and legal texts, and later in Second Temple-era writings. This is important for your readers: when we get to the British Mandate and see currency inscribed “Palestine (Land of Israel),” that parenthetical phrase is not an invention of the 20th century — it is Britain acknowledging a very old Jewish term for the land.
So, before Greek writers began talking about “Palaistinē,” we have a layered set of names: Egyptian for a coastal people, Israelite for the whole land, and later Judean for the southern kingdom. None of these amounted to “Palestine” as a political, province-level name.
Greek usage: “Palaistinē Syria” as a coastal description
The first time we see something very close to the later word “Palestine” is in 5th-century BCE Greek literature, especially in Herodotus’ Histories. Herodotus refers to a place he calls “Palaistinē Syria” — literally “Syrian Palestine.” But when we read his description closely, his “Palestine” is not a sovereign country or a replacement for Judea. He is describing the belt of land between Phoenicia and Egypt — essentially the coastal plain where the Philistines had once lived and where various Levantine peoples traded.
This matters for your site’s argument: the Greek term is geographic and external. It is a label used by an outsider to help other outsiders picture the map of the eastern Mediterranean. It does not displace the local usage of Judea (Ioudaia) for the Jewish polity that existed inland and in the hill country. Greek and later Hellenistic writers could talk about “Syria,” “Phoenicia,” and “Palaistinē” in the same breath because they were mapping regions, not defining native identities.
Over the following centuries, some Hellenistic geographers broadened this usage, and “Palaistinē” began to function as a convenient umbrella term for the southern Levant. But even then, Jewish and local sources kept using Judea, and Roman administrative documents in the 1st century CE still called the province Judaea. In other words, the Greek term set the linguistic stage, but it did not yet create “Palestine” as a province. That act would come later, under the Roman Empire, and it would be deliberate.
For a broader background on Greek geographers’ naming of the Levant, you can link to a supporting source such as the analysis of Herodotus’ Near Eastern geography at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, and then contrast it on another page with your regional timeline of Judea and Israel to show how local names persist even when Greek cartography changes.
Roman imposition: Syria Palaestina (135 CE)
The real turning point in the history of the word “Palestine” is not Herodotus — it is Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century CE. After a series of Jewish revolts against Rome (the Great Revolt of 66–70 CE and, more severely, the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132–135 CE), the Roman government decided that the province of Judaea was too rebellious and too tied to a distinct national-religious identity. Hadrian’s response was not only military; it was naming as policy.
Around 135 CE, following the defeat of Bar Kokhba, Hadrian abolished the name “Judaea” and merged the territory administratively with the broader Syrian region, renaming it Syria Palaestina. This is the first time “Palestina” became the official, province-level name for the territory that had been identified with the Jewish people. Most historians understand this as a punitive and symbolic act: by replacing “Judea” with “Palestina,” Rome aimed to erase the historical and political link between Jews and their land, and to fold the province into a more generic eastern Roman space. For a concise scholarly treatment, see the entry on Hadrian at Livius.org.
This renaming went hand in hand with other measures: Jerusalem itself was refounded as a Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina (from Hadrian’s family name Aelius and the Capitoline triad of gods), and Jews were banned from entering the city except on the day of mourning for the destroyed Temple. Pagan temples were established on Jewish holy sites. In short, the Romans did not merely change what was written on administrative tablets — they tried to rebrand the land away from its Jewish identity.
This is why, on your site, it is essential to distinguish between earlier, loose Greek references to “Palaistinē” and this very precise Roman imposition. The former is descriptive geography; the latter is political displacement. From here on, the Christian and later Islamic administrations would inherit the name “Palestine” not because it was the ancient, original name of the land, but because Rome had made it the official title of the province after suppressing its native name. You can connect this section to a future article on the revolt itself using anchor text such as “why Rome renamed Judea after the Bar Kokhba Revolt.”
Byzantine continuation of the Roman name
When the eastern half of the Roman Empire evolved into what we call the Byzantine Empire, it kept most of the Roman provincial framework. That means the name “Palestina” did not disappear; it was kept, subdivided, and normalized. By the 4th–6th centuries CE, the territory was organized into three provinces: Palestina Prima (coastal plain and Judea, often with Caesarea and Jerusalem as major centers), Palestina Secunda (Galilee and parts of the north), and Palestina Tertia or Salutaris (the Negev and areas toward the Sinai/Arabah). A useful outline of these divisions can be found in the historical geography notes at Fordham’s Medieval Sourcebook: Byzantine Palestine.
What matters for your narrative is this: by the Byzantine period, “Palestine” had become a routine administrative term. Christian rule over the Holy Land, the building of churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and the influx of pilgrims from across the empire all took place under a name that had originally been imposed to displace “Judea.” In other words, later Christian usage of “Palestine” is not evidence of an ancient indigenous name — it is evidence of inheritance from Rome.
This period also strengthens the idea that names can outlive the politics that created them. Even though the original Roman motive was to suppress Jewish national claims, the Christian administration found “Palestine” useful because it was already an established provincial label and because it allowed them to speak of the Holy Land in administrative terms. Pilgrimage texts, church histories, and ecclesiastical geography from this era routinely mention “Palestine,” but they do so in a Christian-Roman context, not in a pre-Roman one.
On your site, this section can link forward to the Islamic period with text like “how the early caliphates adopted the same name as Jund Filastin.” That way, visitors can see the straight line: Roman punitive rename → Byzantine provincial name → Islamic district name.
Early Islamic Period: Jund Filastin
Following the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE, the Byzantine province passed into the hands of the Rashidun Caliphate. The new rulers adopted the existing Roman and Byzantine provincial framework, translating “Palestina” into Arabic as فلسطين – Filastin. Within the broader province of Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria), they created five military districts known as ajnad; one of them, Jund Filastin, included the southern coastal plain, Judea, and the northern Negev, with main centers at Lydda (Lod), Ramla, and Jerusalem.
In early Islamic administration, Filastin functioned purely as a district name. It denoted geography, not nationhood. The population—Muslim, Christian, and Jewish—identified primarily by religion or tribe rather than by a collective political identity. Geographers such as al-Yaʿqubi and the Jerusalem-born al-Muqaddasi described Filastin as one subdivision of Syria, emphasizing its cities and fertile coastal lands. Their works preserved the Roman-Byzantine name but gave it Arabic form, showing continuity of terminology rather than of ethnic meaning.
By the tenth century, Filastin remained one of the most prosperous districts of the caliphate, yet its borders and designation shifted with successive dynasties. The term endured in administrative registers and chronicles because it was convenient, not because it signified an independent polity. “Filastin” thus represents the linguistic survival of the Roman provincial title across religious and imperial transitions.
Medieval and Ottoman Continuity
After the decline of the early caliphates, the region came under a succession of powers—the Crusaders, the Ayyubids under Saladin, the Mamluks, and in 1516 the Ottoman Empire. Throughout these centuries the name “Palestine” or “Filastin” appeared in chronicles, travelogues, and maps, but it never served as an official administrative province. Under both Mamluk and Ottoman rule the territory was divided into smaller districts centered on Jerusalem, Gaza, and Nablus, all within the larger Syrian vilayets.
European travelers and cartographers nevertheless continued to use “Palestine” as a biblical and geographical label. Pilgrimage literature from the twelfth century onward refers to journeys through “the Holy Land of Palestine,” a habit that entered Renaissance and Enlightenment-era maps such as Jacques-Nicolas Bellin’s Carte de la Palestine (1763). The term endured in Western languages as a cultural reference, not as the name of an existing political entity.
Within the Ottoman system, the area containing Jerusalem, Hebron, and Gaza formed the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, a special district reporting directly to Istanbul because of its religious importance. Ottoman documents occasionally used the transliteration Filistin for descriptive purposes, but officially the region belonged to the Vilayets of Damascus and Beirut. Thus, on the eve of the twentieth century, “Palestine” remained a historical and geographic expression—recognized by scholars and pilgrims alike—yet still without defined borders or sovereign administration bearing that name.
British Mandate: “Palestine (Eretz Yisrael)” on currency
After the First World War, the League of Nations assigned Britain the Mandate for Palestine with the stated objective of establishing a “Jewish national home” while safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all inhabitants. The legal instrument spelled out this purpose explicitly, embedding the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land into the governing framework (League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, 1922).
In 1927 the Palestine Currency Board introduced the Palestine pound, replacing the Egyptian currency then in circulation. Notes and coins carried trilingual inscriptions: English (Palestine), Arabic (Filastin), and Hebrew written as פלשתינה (א״י) — read “Palestina (E.Y.)”. The parenthetical letters א״י stand for ארץ ישראל – Eretz Yisrael, meaning Land of Israel. This wording reflected the Mandate’s legal language and acknowledged the long-standing Hebrew name alongside the administrative term “Palestine” (Palestine pound: design and legends).
The appearance of “Palestine (Land of Israel)” on official currency made visible a duality that had existed for centuries: “Palestine” as an externally derived administrative label, and “Land of Israel” as the enduring Hebrew name in scripture, prayer, and communal life. The Mandate government used “Palestine” to denote its jurisdiction, but in legal, postal, and financial contexts it recognized Hebrew terminology tied to Jewish historical identity.
Throughout the Mandate period (1917–1948), “Palestinian” in official English usage could refer to both Jews and Arabs resident in the territory. Jewish institutions (newspapers, sports associations, and representative bodies) often carried the word “Palestine” in their English names while simultaneously using Eretz Yisrael in Hebrew. This bilingual practice underscores how the administrative term coexisted with the ancestral Hebrew designation up to the end of British rule.
Modern political and national usage
In 1948 the State of Israel proclaimed independence, reviving the ancient national name after nearly two millennia without sovereignty. The armistice lines that followed the war left the Gaza Strip under Egyptian administration and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) under Jordanian control. The word Palestine persisted in regional discourse to describe the land west of the Jordan River not incorporated into Israel, and it increasingly denoted the Arab people who identified that land as their homeland.
In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded, articulating a modern Palestinian national identity and political program for the former Mandate territory (PLO formation and charter). In 1988, the Palestinian National Council issued the Declaration of Independence of the “State of Palestine,” referencing the Mandate period borders and drawing on international legal language then current (1988 Declaration of Independence).
Following the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords, a Palestinian Authority was established with limited self-government in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly granted the “State of Palestine” non-member observer state status (UNGA Resolution 67/19, 2012). Since then, “Palestine” functions internationally as a diplomatic and national designation for the Palestinian people and their claimed statehood, even as the territory lacks universally recognized sovereign borders and remains subject to complex agreements and disputes.
From a historical-linguistic perspective, the modern use of the term marks a transformation: a label introduced as a Roman provincial name, preserved through Byzantine and Islamic administration, revived as a British colonial title, and ultimately reinterpreted in the twentieth century as the banner of a distinct Arab national movement.
About the evolution of the term “Palestine”
The term’s journey can be summarized as follows. In antiquity, related words denoted a coastal people (Peleset/Philistines) and their narrow shoreline territory. Greek writers broadened this into a geographical label for the southern Levant, still external to local self-identification. Rome’s decisive act in 135 CE replaced Judea with Syria Palaestina, converting a descriptive label into a tool of imperial policy. Byzantium maintained the name as routine administration; early Islam translated it to Filastin within Greater Syria; medieval and Ottoman authorities governed the land without a province called “Palestine,” even as pilgrims and mapmakers kept the word alive in literature and cartography. Under the British Mandate, “Palestine” returned as an official political unit, while currency simultaneously acknowledged the Hebrew term Eretz Yisrael (“Land of Israel”). In the late twentieth century, “Palestine” became the political-national term of the Palestinian movement and diplomatic forums.
Viewed chronologically, the name Palestine shifted from external geography to imperial administration and finally to modern nationalism. This explains why historical sources may use “Palestine,” “Judea,” and “Land of Israel” side by side in different eras: they reflect distinct naming traditions—native, administrative, and political—that overlapped on the same land.