By 2010, the Negev was home to approximately 630.000 people, representing 8.2 percent of Israel’s population. 75 percent of the population are Jews and 25 percent Bedouins. Half of the Bedouin population are rural communities living in unrecognized villages, and the other half live in cities built for them by the Israeli government in the 1960s and 1980s. The largest of these cities is Rahat.
