Caesarea

Caesarea (Hebrew: קֵיסָרְיָה‎‎, Kaysariya or Qesarya; Arabic: قيسارية, Qaysaria; Greek: Καισάρεια) is a town in north-central Israel.

It is midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa on the coastal plain near the city of Hadera, It is the only Israeli locality managed by a private organization, the Caesarea Development Corporation. It has many people, but is not recognized as a local council.

The town was built by Herod the Great about 25–13 BC as the port city Caesarea Maritima. It was the administrative center of Judaea in the Roman Empire. Later it was the capital of the Byzantine Palaestina Prima province during the classic period.

In the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, it was the last city to fall to the Arabs. The city had an Arab majority until the Crusader conquest. It was abandoned after the Mamluk conquest. It was re-populated in 1884 by Bosniak immigrants, who settled in a small fishing village. In 1952, the Jewish town of Caesarea was established near the ruins of the old city. The ruins were made into the national park of Caesarea Maritima.