The Jordan Portal

Location of Jordan
Flag of Jordan

Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and both Israel and Palestine (West Bank) to the west. The Jordan River, flowing into the Dead Sea, is located along the country's western border within the Jordan Rift Valley. Jordan has a small coastline along the Red Sea in its southwest, separated by the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt. Amman is the country's capital and largest city, as well as the most populous city in the Levant.

Inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period, three kingdoms developed in Transjordan during the Iron Age: Ammon, Moab and Edom. In the third century BC, the Arab Nabataeans established their kingdom centered in Petra. The Greco-Roman period saw the establishment of several cities in Transjordan that comprised the Decapolis. After the end of Byzantine rule, the region became part of the Islamic caliphates of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and the Ottoman. Following the 1916 Great Arab Revolt during World War I, former Ottoman Syria was partitioned, leading to the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921, which became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan gained independence and became officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Jordan captured and annexed the West Bank during the 1948 Palestine war until it was occupied by Israel in 1967. Jordan renounced its claim to the territory to the Palestinians in 1988 and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

Jordan is a semi-arid country, covering an area of 89,342 km2 (34,495 sq mi) with a population of 11.5 million, making it the eleventh-most populous Arab country. The dominant majority, or around 95% of the country's population, is Sunni Muslim, with the rest being mostly Arab Christian. Jordan was mostly unscathed by the violence that swept the region following the Arab Spring in 2010. From as early as 1948, Jordan has accepted refugees from multiple neighbouring countries in conflict. An estimated 2.1 million Palestinian refugees, most of whom hold Jordanian citizenship, as well as 1.4 million Syrian refugees, were residing in Jordan in 2015. The kingdom is also a refuge for thousands of Christian Iraqis fleeing persecution. While Jordan continues to accept refugees, the large Syrian influx during the 2010s has placed substantial strain on national resources and infrastructure.

The sovereign state is a semi-constitutional monarchy, but the king holds wide executive and legislative powers. Jordan is a founding member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Jordan has a high Human Development Index, ranking 100th, and is considered a lower middle income economy. The Jordanian economy, one of the smallest economies in the region, is attractive to foreign investors based upon a skilled workforce. Jordan is a major tourist destination, also attracting medical tourism with its well-developed health sector. Nonetheless, a lack of natural resources, large flow of refugees, and regional turmoil have hampered economic growth. (Full article...)

Selected article - show another

Umm Qais from north

Umm Qais (Arabic: أم قيس, lit.'Mother of Qais'), also known as Qays, is a town in northern Jordan principally known for its proximity to the ruins of the ancient Gadara. It is the largest city in the Bani Kinanah Department and Irbid Governorate in the extreme northwest of the country, near Jordan's borders with Israel and Syria. Today, the site is divided into three main areas: the archaeological site (Gadara), the traditional village (Umm Qais), and the modern town of Umm Qais. (Full article...)

Selected biography - show another

Princess Haya in 2017

Princess Haya bint Al Hussein (Arabic: الأميرة هيا بنت الحسين; born 3 May 1974) is the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife, Queen Alia. She is the half-sister of King Abdullah II.

Haya is a graduate of the University of Oxford in England and an accomplished equestrian. She represented Jordan at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and is the two-term President of the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI). (Full article...)

WikiProject

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Jordan-related articles, see WikiProject Jordan.

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various Jordan-related articles on Wikipedia.

Selected city - show another

The Azraq refugee camp is a refugee camp, located near Azraq, Jordan, built for refugees of the Syrian Civil War. It was developed, and is operated, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in conjunction with the Government of Jordan. It first opened in April 2014. As of March 2016 it had over 32,000 refugees in it; by August 2019 that number was over 35,000. By the time of the fall of the Assad regime, in December 2024, around 41,000 Syrians were believed to be housed in the Azraq refugee camp. (Full article...)

Recognized content

Topics

Selected topic overview - show another

Energy in Jordan

  • Jordan has substantial oil shale reserves underneath approximately 60% of the country.
  • The Baynouna Solar Power Plant, which will generate an estimated 3% of the country's power, began construction in 2017 near Amman.
  • In 2015, Jordan launched an initiative to have solar panels on every mosque in the country.
  • The Arab Gas Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline which runs north-south through Jordan, connecting Egypt with Syria and Lebanon.

Read more...

Categories

Selected picture - show another

The Karak Castle (c. 12th century AD) built by the Crusaders, and later expanded under the Muslim Ayyubids and Mamluks.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Sources

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache