In the mid 19th-century, Hebron was still divided into four quarters, but the Christian quarter had disappeared. The sections included the ancient quarter surrounding the cave of Machpelah, the "Haret Kheitun" (the Jewish quarter, "Haret el-Yahud"), the "Haret el-Sheikh" and the Druze quarter. As Hebron's population gradually increased, inhabitants preferred to build upwards rather than leave the safety of their neighbourhoods. By the 1880s, better security provided by the Ottoman authorities allowed the town to expand and a new commercial centre, "Bab el-Zawiye", emerged. As development continued, new spacious and taller structures were built to the north-west. In 1918, the town consisted of dense clusters of residential dwellings along the valley, rising onto the slopes above it. By the 1920s, the town was made up of seven quarters: "el-Sheikh" and "Bab el-Zawiye" to the west, "el-Kazzazin", "el-Akkabi" and "el-Haram" in the centre, "el-Musharika" to the south and "el-Kheitun" in the east. Urban sprawl had spread onto the surrounding hills by 1945. The large population increase under Jordanian rule resulted in about 1,800 new houses being built, most of them along the Hebron-Jerusalem highway, stretching northwards for over at a depth of 600 ft (200m) either way. Some 500 houses were built elsewhere on surrounding rural land. There was less development to the south-east, where housing units extended along the valley for about 1 mile (1.5 km).