The Historical Geography of the Holy Land

The Historical Geography of the Holy Land is a work of biblical geography and a travelogue of Palestine, and the magnum opus of Scottish theologian George Adam Smith. The book, first published in 1894, sought to explain the history, literature and religion of the Bible through a description of the physical geography of Palestine, combining firsthand observation with biblical criticism and archeological research. The work was widely read, revised repeatedly (with 26 editions), and became the definitive work on the topic, establishing Smith as one of the leading authorities on the geography of the Holy Land.

Smith extended his geographical project with the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1915), designed and edited by Smith and prepared under the direction of John George Bartholomew at the Edinburgh Geographical Institute. Published just a few years prior to the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), the book was used by politicians and diplomats to negotiate the borders of Mandatory Palestine.

In 1983, Biblical Archaeology Review described the work in a review of Bible atlases as: "[s]till one of the best Biblical geographies in print, this work is also one of the earliest... Though the maps are out of date and many of the site identifications are now known to be incorrect, the theological and literary contributions of this work are timeless."

Historical Geography had sold 35,000 copies by 1942, the year of George Adam Smith's death, and remained in print until 1976. It continues to have a significant second-hand readership.