Half of the revenue went to a waqf. In the spring of 1697, Henry Maundrell noted at Al Bireh, which he called "Beer", the remains of a Church, which he wrote was built by Empress Helena. After the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine, the Ottoman authorities conscripted many men from Al-Bireh as soldiers. In 1838, when Robinson visited, 60 had been taken away to be soldiers, out of a total population of 700. Robinson noted it as a Muslim village, "el-Bireh", located in the area immediately north of Jerusalem. When French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1863, he found it to have 800 inhabitants. Socin, citing an official Ottoman village list compiled around 1870, noted that Al-Bireh had a population of 399 Muslims in 142 houses, and 20 "Greeks" in 5 houses, though that population count included only men. It was further noted that the name meant "The cistern". Hartmann found that Al-Bireh had 142 houses. In 1883, the PEF's "Survey of Western Palestine" (SWP) described Bireh as a good-sized village, with "fairly well built" houses. In 1896 the population of Bireh was estimated to be about 1,080 persons. Until 1917, the city served as a political and administrative center for the Ottoman Empire. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, "Al-Bireh" had a population of 1,479; 1,407 Muslims, and 72 Christians, where the Christians were 61 Orthodox, 3 Roman Catholics and 8 "other". The population had increased in the 1931 census to 2,292; 2,044 Muslim and 248 Christians, in 541 houses. In the 1945 statistics, the town's residents numbered 2,920; of which 280 were Christians and 2,640 Muslims, while urban Bireh had 967 dunams of land, and rural Bireh 22,045 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,162 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 11,226 used for cereals, while 759 dunams were built-up (urban) land. In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Al-Bireh came under Jordanian rule. In 1961, the population of "Bira" was 14,510.