Haifa: A Guide to the City on Mount Carmel

Haifa rises from the Mediterranean up the slopes of Mount Carmel, so almost every street seems to end in a view of the bay. For much of the last 150 years it has been one of the most important port cities on the eastern Mediterranean.

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A port city grows

In the 19th century Haifa was a small walled town. It grew quickly after the Hejaz Railway branch line opened in 1905, linking it to Damascus, and again when the British built a deep-water port in the 1930s. By then it was one of the largest Palestinian Arab cities, with a busy mix of merchants, workers and families.

1948 and after

During the war of 1948, most of Haifa's Palestinian Arab residents left or were forced out, and many were never able to return. Today Palestinian citizens form a minority in the city, and neighbourhoods such as Wadi Nisnas remain at the heart of Arab life in Haifa.

Wadi Nisnas

Wadi Nisnas is a lively neighbourhood of stone houses, bakeries and a small market. Each December it hosts the Holiday of Holidays festival, celebrating the seasons of several faiths with music, food stalls and art in the streets.

A city of writers

Haifa is closely tied to Palestinian literature. The novelist Emile Habibi lived here and set much of his satirical classic The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1974) in the city. Ghassan Kanafani's novella Returning to Haifa (1969) follows a couple who come back to their old home after 20 years.

Carmel and the gardens

On the slopes above the city, the terraced Bahá'í Gardens, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008, run down to the old German Colony, whose stone houses were built by settlers from Germany in the 1800s.

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