City of golden stone
Jerusalem
Old and new buildings alike are faced in pale limestone that turns gold in the evening light.
Why Jerusalem is jerusalem stone
Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Nearly all its buildings share one material: a pale limestone, cream to pinkish, known as Jerusalem stone. The city walls built under the Ottoman sultan Suleiman in the 16th century use it, as does the Western Wall far earlier. In 1918 the British military governor, Ronald Storrs, introduced a rule that new buildings must be faced in the local stone, and versions of that rule still apply. The result is a city of one colour that turns warm gold at sunset. Above it shines the gilded Dome of the Rock, completed in 691, whose outer walls are covered with blue, green and yellow tiles.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Jerusalem
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Jerusalem" on Wikipedia. If you know Jerusalem and we have it wrong, tell us.
More colour cities
All colour cities
🇮🇳 The Golden CityJaisalmerA fort and town built of yellow sandstone that glows like honey at sunset, deep in the Thar Desert.
🇮🇳 City of the Golden TempleAmritsarThe gilded shrine of Harmandir Sahib shines over its pool, ringed by white marble and saffron turbans.
🇬🇠Home of kente clothBonwireA weaving village near Kumasi where narrow strips of kente are woven in gold, green, red and black.
🇦🇺 Sandstone port under the southern lightsHobartTasmania's capital, with honey-coloured sandstone warehouses on the waterfront and, at times, a green and pink night sky.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Jaisalmer In: Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, source
- Amritsar In: Traveltoindia23, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bonwire Gh: Sadads, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Hobart Au: Michael fromholtz, CC BY-SA 4.0, source