The village was situated on relatively flat terrain that sloped from north to south. Its lands were bounded by the northern bank of the al-'Awja River, some 2 km south of the village site. Al-Sawalima was founded by the nomadic 'Arab al-Sawalima, whose presence in Palestine predated Ottoman rule. They originally occupied the site only seasonally, during a phase in their annual migration cycle, but gradually began to settle permanently there in adobe houses. The residents, who were Muslim, opened an elementary school in the village in 1946, with an initial enrollment of thirty-one students. They cultivated citrus in the western and, especially, southern portions where a good number of wells provided irrigation water. In 1944/45 a total of 894 dunums was devoted to citrus and bananas and 4,566 dunums were allocated to cereals; 191 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards. The northern segments of the village lands were mostly forest.
