Sherds from the
Iron Age II,
Hellenistic,
Roman,
Byzantine and
Mamluk eras have been found. West of the town, at Khirbat Bir Zait,
sherds have been found from
Iron Age I to the early Ottoman era, with most of them dating back to Iron Age II. The Iron Age ruins span the peak and western slope, while the medieval remnants cluster near the sizable building on the eastern slope. Here are the remains of a building which have been dated to the
Crusader era. Guérin first noted the remains of a buildings 50
paces on each side. He thought it could be from the Byzantine era or later. The ruin has been identified with the biblical location of Birzaith. In 1838 it was noted as a small Christian village, north-west of
Jifna. The French explorer
Victor Guérin visited the village in July 1863. He found it to have a population of 1,800 inhabitants, of those 140 were Latin Catholics, the others were "
schismatic Greeks" and Muslims. The Catholic parish was administered by a young French missionary, Father Joly. The irrigated gardens were well grown, and the soil naturally fertile. It abounded in vines, figs and pears. He also noted some beautiful walnut trees.
Socin, citing an official
Ottoman village list compiled around 1870, noted that
Bir Zet as having 73 houses and a male population of 250. Of this, 75 men in 20 houses were Muslim, while 175 men in 53 houses were "Latin"
Christian. In 1882, the
Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF)
Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) described Bir Zeit as "a Christian village of moderate size, containing a Greek Church and a Latin Church, with a
well to the north, and olives round it." The red-tiled roof of the Latin Church on top of the ridge was a conspicuous feature in the landscape. In 1896 the population of Bir ez-zet was estimated to be about 786 Christians and 192 Muslims. In 1906, a British missionary of the
Church Missionary Society wrote about an outbreak of
cholera in Birzeit thirty years before that within a week killed 30 people out of a population of 200–300. The epidemic ended when a village elder ordered the entire population to camp in their vineyards.The author felt that the incident was notable "as there was no European hand in it from first to last, and it shows what the
Fellahin are capable of under wise and energetic native guidance."
British Mandate era In the
1922 census of Palestine conducted by the
British Mandate authorities, the village, called
Bair Zait, had a total population of 896; 119 Muslims and 777 Christian; 399 Orthodox, 253 Roman Catholics and 125 Anglicans. In the
1931 census, the village had 251 occupied houses and a total population of 1233; 362 Muslims and 871 Christians. In the
1945 statistics the population was 1,560; 570 Muslims and 990 Christians, while the total land area was 14,088
dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 6,908 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 2,414 for cereals, while 402 dunams were classified as built-up (urban) areas.
Jordanian era In the wake of the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the
1949 Armistice Agreements, Birzeit came under
Jordanian rule. It was
annexed by Jordan in 1950. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 3,253 inhabitants in
Bir Zeit.
1967–present After the
1995 accords, 75.8% of village land was classified as
Area B, the remaining 24.2% as
Area C. On 13 January 2026, 21 people from four Palestinian families including 12 children were displaced from Area B on the eastern outskirts of the town following consistent settler
attacks linked to outpost built in august 2025.
Landmark buildings The town has 200 historic buildings, including over 100 in the old part of town, some dating back to the Mamluk era.
Birzeit University was formerly located there. Dozens of buildings vacated by the university's move to Ramallah were restored, reinvigorating social and economic development. == Religion ==