The Old City of Jerusalem is a 0.9 square kilometer(0.35 square mile) area of the modern day city of Jerusalem.[Until the 1860s this area constituted the entire city of Jerusalem. The Old City was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in 1981 and in 1982 it was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger. The Old City is home to several sites of key religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims.
Before King David's conquest of Jerusalem in the 11th century BCE the city was home to the Jebusites. The Bible describes the city as heavily fortified with a strong city wall. His son King Solomon extended the city walls and then, in about 440 BCE, in the Persian period, Nehemiah returned from Babylon and rebuilt them. In 41-44 CE, Agrippa, king of Judea, built a new city wall known as the "Third Wall".
In 1219 the walls of the city were razed by Mu'azzim Sultan of Damascus; in 1229, by treaty with Egypt, Jerusalem came into the hands of Frederick II of Germany. In 1239 he began to rebuild the walls; but they were again demolished by Da'ud, the emir of Kerak.
In 1243 Jerusalem came again under the control of the Christians, and the walls were repaired. The Kharezmian Tatars took the city in 1244 and Sultan Malik al-Muattam razed the city walls, rendering it again defenseless and dealing a heavy blow to the city's status.
The current walls of the Old City do not include the original area conquered by Kin David. This area, which is now called the City of David, is located to the southeast of the current Old City, outside The Dung Gate.
The Old City of Jerusalem has also been named by the American television show 'Good Morning America' and newspaper 'USA Today' as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
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