The village stood on the eastern slopes of the western foothills of the Hebron Mountains. A secondary road passed through the village, linking it to Kudna and Bayt Jibrin to the south. To the northwest this road led to the villages of Dayr al-Dubban and 'Ajjur, ultimately connecting with the Jerusalem-Jaffa highway. Edward Robinson, an American biblical scholar who passed by in 1838, mentioned that the fields of Ra'na were planted in tobacco and cotton. 
In the late nineteenth century, the village of Ra'na was built of stone and mud, and had a pool and gardens. The population was Muslim; their houses were made of stone and roofed with wood and mud. Ra'na was classified as a hamlet by the Palestine Index Gazetteer. Grain was the predominant crop but the villagers also cultivated grapes, carob, and olives in the final years of the Mandate. In 1944/45 a total of 5,882 dunums was planted in cereals; 112 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards.
