Arad is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It is located on the border of the Negev and the Judean Deserts, 25 kilometres west of the Dead Sea and 45 kilometres east of Beersheba. The city is home to a diverse population of 28,170, including Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, Bedouins and Black Hebrews, as well as new immigrants. After attempts to settle the area in the 1920s, Arad was founded in November 1962 as an Israeli development town, the first planned city in Israel.