Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva (Hebrew: בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, romanized: Bəʾēr Ševaʿ, IPA: [ˈbe(ʔ)eʁ ˈʃeva(ʕ)]; Arabic: بئر السبع, romanized: Biʾr as-Sabʿ, lit. 'Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven'), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most populous Israeli city with a population of 209,687, and the second-largest city in area (after Jerusalem), with a total area of 117,500 dunams.