Tel Aviv is the largest city and also the industrial, commercial and cultural center of Israel. It is located in the Shallum Plain in the mid-west, bordering on the Mediterranean to the west, stretching from the downstream of the Yarkon River to the north, and reaching to Yafo Bay to the south. Tel Aviv was originally a stretch of dune in the north of Yafo, and in 1909, residential areas were built on the dune for the settlement of Jews that flooded to Palestine; in 1921, it was built into a city populated by Jews, with the population of 30,000.