Demography
The largest cities in the region are Acre, Nahariya, Nazareth, Safed, Karmiel, Shaghur, Afula, and Tiberias. The port city of Haifa serves as a commercial center for the whole region.
Because of its hilly terrain, most of the people in the Galilee live in small villages connected by relatively few roads. A railroad runs south from Nahariya along the Mediterranean coast. The main sources of livelihood throughout the area are in the fields of agriculture and tourism. Industrial parks are being developed, bringing further employment opportunities to the local population which includes many recent immigrants. The Israeli government is contributing funding to the private initiative, The Galilee Finance Facility, organised by the Milken Institute and Koret Economic Development Fund.
Galilee is home to a large Arab population, with a particularly large Druze population. The central portion of the Galilee also known as the "Heart of the Galilee" stretching from the border with Lebanon to the northern edge of the Jezreel Valley including the cities of Nazareth, Sakhnin, Shaghur, Tamra and Kafr Kanna has an Arab population of 75% with most of the Jewish population living in small hilltop towns, and cities like Karmiel, and Ma'alot. Meanwhile the eastern Galilee including the Finger of the Galilee, the Jordan River Valley, and the Region around the Sea of Galilee are nearly 100% Jewish. The Southern part of the Galilee; including Jezreel Valley, and the Gilboa region are also nearly 100% Jewish with only a few small Arab villages near the West Bank border. At the same time about 80% of the population of the Western Galilee is Jewish. The region directly under the Lebanese Border, especially in the Northwest is largely Jewish as well. The Jewish Agency has attempted to increase the Jewish population in this area, but the non-Jewish population continues to grow. In 2006, out of the 1.2 million residents in the Galilee area some 53.1% were of various minorities, while only 46.9% were Jewish.
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