Hebron was an ancient Canaanite city. Abraham is mentioned traveling there around 1800 B.C. Conquered by the children of Israel under Joshua around 1400 B.C., the city became an important part of Judah and is mentioned many times in the Bible.
Today Hebron is in a mostly Arab section of the West Bank. Israel still maintains control of a small block of Jewish settlers in the city surrounded by over 100,000 Arab neighbors. Today the city has a total of 215,452 inhabitants (2016).The situation in Hebron is often tense and it is one of the cities where violent attacks have taken place in the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis.
A number of modern towns also bear the same name, such as towns in the U.S. states of Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut, and Nebraska.