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I happened to read a review of A Child's Geography that mentioned a discrepancy with the population of Bethlehem given on p. 60 of the text. (The caption on the picture gives a population of 60,000, but the text gives a population of 185,000 people.) I thought I'd check on-line, but I'm getting all different answers. For example, the United States Census Bureau gives a population of 75,000 and wikipedia gives a count of 25,000. Any suggestions on knowing what the actual population is?

Is this about when He rod ordered the dearth of all boys 2 and younger? We learned about it lay night in a class I take, and it was mentioned that counts varied because some are just the town and others the "metropolitan area."

Even numbers for small rural communities can be like that. It depends on whether they count just those who live in homes within town limits or whether they are recording the "catchment area" or "service area" of the town.

Not sure of the Bethlehem numbers though - I hope Carrie or Julie chimes in on their perspective.
Blessings,

Thanks for answering. I'm actually looking for the current population, rather than in Herod's time. I wondered if the discrepancy in the text happened to be related to towns vs. municipal areas, similar to how where we live, we have villages encased in towns. Both have the same name, but the village population is much smaller than the town, as the town includes the village and surrounding areas. What is confusing, however, is that both numbers in the text are different than numbers given on the Internet.

I think the US census is for Bethlehem, PA. I think Bethlehem, Israel is between 25K and 30K currently.

StephanieU wrote:I think the US census is for Bethlehem, PA. I think Bethlehem, Israel is between 25K and 30K currently.

Oh, my, you are correct about the US one!!

It's strange that the numbers in A Child's Geography are so far off from the correct ones. I've noticed a few other errors and/or maps that don't match well with the text, so I'm wondering if it's just a matter of the book not being proofread/edited very carefully. (They needed Julie's proofreading skills! ) I like the book, overall, but I'm thinking I'll have to double check from now on, just to make sure I'm presenting the correct information.

I live near Bethlehem, PA. I got a nice morning chuckle at your expense. Hehe

daybreaking wrote:

StephanieU wrote:I think the US census is for Bethlehem, PA. I think Bethlehem, Israel is between 25K and 30K currently.

Oh, my, you are correct about the US one!!

It's strange that the numbers in A Child's Geography are so far off from the correct ones. I've noticed a few other errors and/or maps that don't match well with the text, so I'm wondering if it's just a matter of the book not being proofread/edited very carefully. (They needed Julie's proofreading skills! ) I like the book, overall, but I'm thinking I'll have to double check from now on, just to make sure I'm presenting the correct information.

You are more steadfast than me I read that book last year didn't really find any errors LOL. There were a few dates of needed discussions but not necessarily "errors" if that makes sense. But my proofreading skills are....uhm.....terrible LOL.

I agree that I didn't find anything wrong either However we were able to talk about metro areas vs actual town limits. We were able to compare sizes of places, etc. So I think it gave her an idea of how many people were there anyway, you know? I don't know if she was imagining a small little area with only a few people, but now she's not. Or if she was imagining the place where they had to go for tax reasons to be a huge city, but not she knows it's not.