Iturea or Ituraea (Ancient Greek: Ἰτουραία, Itouraía) is the Greek name of a Levantine region north of Galilee during the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods. It extended from Mount Lebanon across the plain of Marsyas^{[dubious – discuss]} to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syria, with its centre in Chalcis ad Libanum.

The Itureans (Greek: Ἰτουραῖοι) were a Semitic-speaking semi-nomadic tribe who lived in present-day Syria and Lebanon, who became sedentary during the Hellenistic period. The exact origin of the Itureans is disputed. Some scholars identify them as Arabs, while others believe that they were an Aramaean people, possibly the descendants of the kingdom of Sobah.

They first rose to power in the aftermath of the decline of the Seleucids in the 2nd century BC. Then, from their base around Mount Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, they expanded into the northern Golan and Mount Hermon, as part of the settlement shift that occurred as a result of the collapse of the Seleucid empire, though no evidence of Iturean settlement or "phase" of settlement appears in the Galilee, including Upper Galilee.

Several etymologies have been proposed for the name Iturea and much uncertainty still remains.

Based on the Septuagint translation of 1Ch 5:19 several commentators, including Gesenius, John Gill and William Muir equated the Itureans with Jetur, one of the former Hagrite encampments, named after a son of Ishmael. Later scholars who propose a late origin for the Biblical texts continued to equate the names but viewed the writers of the Bible as basing the Biblical name on that of the Itureans of later centuries. More recent scholars have dismissed such direct relationships between the Biblical Jetur and the Itureans: The account of the Hagrites places Jetur east of Gilead and describes the end of that tribe which was conquered by the Israelites in the days of Saul, whereas Iturea has been confirmed to be north of Galilee and the Itureans first appear in the Hellenistic period with their location only being referred to as Iturea in the Roman period. Although Jetur is translated Itouraion (Ιτουραιων) in 1Ch 5:19, the rendering of the name is not consistent across the Septuagint with the occurrences in Ge 25:15 and 1Ch 1:31 being transliterated Ietour (Ιετουρ) and Iettour (Ιεττουρ) respectively. The translation Itouraion in 1Ch 5:19 (if not an error) would thus be a reinterpretation by the translator of the name of this ancient tribe as referring to a contemporary people. Moreover, in Josephus where both names are mentioned, Jetur (Ιετουρ-) is rendered differently in Greek to Iturea (Ιτουρ-). Similarly in the Vulgate the two localities have different Latin names (Iathur for Jetur and Itureae for Iturea) showing that writers of antiquity did not view the names as the same. Eupolemus used the term Itureans to refer to people from the Biblical region of Aram-Zobah, not Jetur, when describing the wars of King David.

Smith's Bible Dictionary attempted to equate the modern Arabic region name Jedur (جدور) with both Jetur and Iturea. However, the Arabic j (ج) corresponds to Hebrew g (ג) and not y (י), and Arabic d (د) does not correspond to Hebrew ṭ (ט) or Greek t (τ) and the mainstream view is that Jedur is instead the Biblical Gedor (גדור).

David Urquhart linked the Itureans with Aturea a name for the region of Nineveh, a variant of Assyria, suggesting that the Itureans were originally Assyrians, also implying a connection with the Druze living in the region in his time. (The name "Druze" is however unrelated to "Iturean".)

Ernest Axel Knauf related Iturea to the Safaitic name Yaẓur (יט׳ור, يظور) which is rendered Yaṭur (יטור) in Nabatean Aramaic. Before being established as the name of a people (Al-Yaẓur or Yaṭureans), this name is found as a personal name, in particular that of a Nabatean prince with a brother Zabud whose name may be connected with that of the Zabadaeans, another Nabatean tribe who together with the Itureans had been conquered by the Hasmoneans. Yaẓur in Safaitic inscriptions is seemingly a cognate of the Biblical name Jetur (Yeṭur, יטור) and is possibly derived from its original form. If this is the case then Biblical Jetur would indirectly be the origin of the name Iturea although denoting a different region and people centuries before. Whether the names are indeed related hinges on their original meanings. The Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon suggests that Jetur means "enclosure" related to the personal name Ṭur (טור) and the word ṭirah (טירה) denoting an encampment and explicitly used for the Ishmaelite encampments. This would contradict their being a connection with Yaẓur as in Arabic which like Safaitic preserves the distinction between the ẓ (ظ) and ṭ (ط) sounds, this root is found with ṭ and not ẓ. Thus if the Itureans derived their name from Jetur, the people known as the Yaẓur in Safaitic inscriptions would have been a different people, possibly only a small family group, while if the Itureans derived their name from Yaẓur there would be no connection with Jetur.