Tel Aviv is located in West-Central Israel, on the Mediterranean Sea. Tel Aviv is the commercial and cultural center of Israel, the area of the nation that is most densely populated. Tel Aviv is also a noted tourist spot in Israel, the home of several resort hotels and beaches. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by Jewish settlers from Jaffa, and the population of the region grew rapidly from the 1920s through Hitler’s coming to power in Germany in the 1930s, and finally, after 1948, when Israel became a recognized state. The population grew again in the late 1980s with an influx of Ethiopian and Soviet refugees. Tel Aviv was briefly the capital of Israel until the state’s power was transferred to Jerusalem. Iraqi missiles bombed Tel Aviv during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The estimated population of Tel Aviv is 450,000 people.
