Israel’s Christian population has grown by around two per cent this year, according to its Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Latest data published by the CBS shows that the state’s Christian community now numbers more than 185,000, just under two per cent of Israel’s total population of around 9.6m people.

This is a jump of almost five per cent from 177,000 in December 2019.

The report concluded that more than half (52.9 per cent) of Arab Christians progressed to further academic studies after completing high school, a larger proportion than the Jewish population (48.2 per cent) and both non-Arab Christians and Arab Muslims (both 31.2 per cent).

Arab Christians were over-represented in law, mathematics, statistics, social sciences, and computer sciences in Israel's higher education system. They were under-represented across courses in education, business, and paramedicine.

Of the country’s Christians, 75.8 per cent are Arab Christians. This community represents 6.9 per cent of Israel's total Arab population.

An overwhelming chunk (70.2 per cent) of Israeli Arab Christians are based in the Northern District. The Haifa District was runner-up, being home to 13.6 per cent of Israel’s Arab Christians.

Meanwhile, 39 per cent of the state’s non-Arab Christians reside in the Tel Aviv and Central Districts, while 36.3 per cent are located in the Northern and Haifa Districts.

Nazareth, dubbed “the Arab capital of Israel'' and described as the childhood home of Jesus in the New Testament, has a 21,100-strong Arab Christian population - the largest of any Israeli locality. The city’s Church of the Annunciation is among the oldest and most popular sites of Christian pilgrimage in the Middle East.

However, only 30.9 percent of the northern city’s mainly Arab population is recorded as Christian. Other localities with sizable Arab Christian populations included Haifa (16,700), Jerusalem (12,900), and the Sunni Muslim majority city of Shefa-Amr (10,500) in Israel's northwest.

The report also said that in 2020, 582 Christian couples married in Israel. The CBS found that the mean age of first marriage for Israeli Christian grooms was 30.6. It was almost 4 years lower for Christian brides (26.8).

It also noted that throughout 2021, Christian women gave birth to 2,434 babies, about 72 per cent of whom (1,749 babies) were the children of Arab Christian mothers.

The average size of a Christian household (3.06 people) was closer to the average Jewish household size (3.05).

Both are lower than the average Muslim-headed household size of 4.46 people.

The rate of convicted Israeli Christians was about 185 per 100,000 persons. The rate of non-Arab Christian persons convicted was far higher than the rate of Arab Christians (about 252 and about 164 per 100,000 persons, respectively).

The growth of Israel’s Christian minority comes as the historic community’s size has dramatically shrunk across the Palestinian Territories.

The Palestinian Authority’s census data estimates that the Palestinian Christian population has plummeted from around 70,000 in 1922 to 47,000 in 2017.