Dimona (Hebrew: דִּימוֹנָה, Arabic: ديمونا) is an Israeli city in the Negev desert, 30 kilometres (19 mi) to the south-east of Beersheba and 35 kilometres (22 mi) west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. In 2023 its population was 39,230. The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, colloquially known as the Dimona Reactor, is located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) southeast of the city.
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The Southern District (Hebrew: מחוז הדרום, Meḥoz HaDarom; Arabic: لواء الجنوب) is one of Israel's six administrative districts, the largest in terms of land area but the most sparsely populated. It covers most of the Negev desert, as well as the Arava valley. The population of the Southern District is 1,086,240 and its area is 14,185 km. Its population is 79.66% Jewish and 12.72% Arab (mostly Muslim), with 7.62% of other origins.
The district capital is Beersheba, while the largest city is Ashdod. Beersheba's dormitory towns of Omer, Meitar, and Lehavim are affluent relative to other Israeli cities, while the development towns of Dimona, Sderot, Netivot, Ofakim, and Yeruham and the seven Bedouin cities are lower on the socio-economic scale.
The Negev (/ˈnɛɡɛv/ NEG-ev; Hebrew: הַנֶּגֶב, romanized: haNégev) or Naqab (Arabic: النقب, romanized: an-Naqab), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. 218,995), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city and port of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including Dimona, Arad, and Mitzpe Ramon, as well as a number of small Bedouin towns, including Rahat, Tel Sheva, and Lakiya. There are also several kibbutzim, including Revivim and Sde Boker; the latter became the home of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, after his retirement from politics.
Although historically part of a separate region (known during the Roman period as Arabia Petraea), the Negev was added to the proposed area of Mandatory Palestine, of which large parts later became Israel, on 10 July 1922, having been conceded by British representative St John Philby "in Trans-Jordan's name". Despite this, the region remained exclusively Arab until 1946; in response to the British Morrison–Grady Plan which would have allotted the area to an Arab state, the Jewish Agency enacted the 11 points in the Negev plan to begin Jewish settlement in the area. A year later, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine allotted a larger part of the area to the Jewish State which became Israel.