Jaffa Gate :: Jerusalem

Jaffa Gate  is a stone portal in the historic walls of Jerusalem’s Old City; it is one of eight gates in Jerusalem’s Old City walls.

The Jaffa Gate is so named because it is the portal for Jaffa Road, the precursor to the modern highway to the ancient port of Jaffa and the Mediterranean coastal plain.

Inside the Jaffa Gate is a small square between the Christian and Armenian Quarters. The Christian Quarter is to the north, on the left, and the Armenian Quarter is to the South, on the right. The Gate’s location is determined by the city’s topography, located along the valley followed by Jaffa Road into the old city, between the northern hill of the Acra and the southern of Mount Zion. The road and the valley it follows continues eastward and down into the Tyropoeon Valley, bisecting the northern and southern halves of the city, with the Christian and Muslim Quarters to the north, and Armenian and Jewish Quarters to the south. One of the entrances to the Arab marketplace is just inside the Jaffa Gate.