Demographics
An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Der Ghassana" had 164 houses and a population of 559, while "Bet Rima" had 60 houses and a population of 220, though in both cases the population count included only men.
In the Ottoman census of 1887, Deir Ghassaneh's population of 196 households (roughly 1,200 people) was homogenous, all being Muslims and with the exception of five individuals, all males had been born in the village. The estimated 9% of the inhabitants who were born outside the village were almost exclusively women, with one fifth of all females hailing primarily from other villages in the Bani Zeid nahiya such as Beit Rima, Abwein, Kobar and Kafr Ein and about 14 coming from places from other parts of Palestine, particularly al-Madjal Ascalon. Several men from Deir Ghassaneh settled in the surrounding villages, namely Beit Rima, Deir Nidham and Nabi Salih.
In the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, "Dair Ghassaneh" had a population of 625, while "Bait Rema" had a population of 555, all Muslim. In the 1931 census Deir Ghassaneh had 181 occupied houses and a population of 753, while Beit Rima had had 175 occupied houses and a population of 746, still all Muslim. In a land and population survey by Sami Hadawi in 1945, both villages had a total population of 1,810. Beit Rima had a slightly larger population, but Deir Ghassaneh had a larger land area. In a 1961 census by Jordanian authorities, Deir Ghassaneh's population reached 1,461, but it declined drastically after more than half of the residents fled during the Six-Day War in June 1967. In 1982 there were 892 inhabitants in the town. Beit Rima had 2,165 inhabitants in 1961 and unlike Deir Ghassaneh, the population continued to grow, reaching 3,451 in 1987.
In the first census taken by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 1997, Bani Zeid had a population of 4,351 inhabitants. The gender make-up was 51.8% male and 49.2% female. More than half of the population is under the age of 20 (51.1%), while 27.7% are between the ages of 20 to 39, 15% between the ages of 40 and 64, and the remainder of the population is 65 or older (6%). Palestinian refugees made up 6.8% of the residents in 1997.
According to the PCBS census of 2007, Bani Zeid had a population of 5,515, of which 49% were males and 51% females. There were 1,176 housing units and the average size of a household was five family members. The town's principal clans are al-Rimawi, al-Barghouti, al-Shu'aibi, al-Ramahi and Mashaal, although there are also a number of smaller families. Today, there are three mosques in the town, the Bani Zeid Mosque, the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque and the Omar ibn al-Khattab Mosque.
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