Al-Mughayyir, Ramallah
village council in Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate

Al-Mughayyir (Arabic: المغيّر, lit. 'the changer'; sometimes transliterated Al Mughayer or al-Mughaiyir) is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 27 kilometers northeast of Ramallah and 34 kilometers southeast of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the village had a population of 2,872 inhabitants in 2017.
Location and name
Al-Mughayyir is located 18.6 kilometres (12 mi) north-east of Ramallah. It is bordered by Fasayil to the east, Turmus Ayya and Khirbet Abu Falah to the west, Duma and Jalud to the north, and Kafr Malik and al-Auja to the south.
The name al-Mughayyir means 'the changer' and was given due to the continuously changing weather, a result of the village's location in a mountainous area above the central part of the Jordan Valley.
History
The PEF's Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) found here "ancient cisterns, and a rock-cut winepress near the village, which is well built of hewn stone."
Potsherds from the Byzantine/Umayyad and Mamluk eras have been found here.
Ottoman period
In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman Empire with the rest of Palestine, appearing in the 1596 tax-records as Mugayyir, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal, part of Nablus Sanjak. The population was 7 households and 9 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives; a total of 4500 akçe. Potsherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found here.
The public source identifies “Al-Mughayyir, Ramallah” as village council in Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Al-Mughayyir, Ramallah and village.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Al-Mughayyir, Ramallah”, the useful work is to connect “village council in Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4702933. VIAF identifies the subject as 299146461657427732370. Authority coordinates are 32.019, 35.346. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1517 and 1596.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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This entry incorporates text from “Al-Mughayyir, Ramallah” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.