Jordanالأردن

People settled early in the hills east of the Jordan River. At Ain Ghazal, on the edge of modern Amman, farmers of around 7000 BC made plaster statues with wide painted eyes that are among the oldest large human figures known; several stand in the Jordan Museum. The Bible's kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom occupied the plateau in the Iron Age, and the Mesha Stele, a Moabite inscription of the 9th century BC found at Dhiban, records their wars with Israel from the other side.

The Nabataeans, Arab traders who controlled incense and spice caravans between Arabia and the Mediterranean, made Petra their capital from around the 4th century BC. They cut tombs and temples into the sandstone and engineered dams and channels that carried water through the city. Rome annexed the kingdom in AD 106, and the provinces that followed filled the north with cities of the Decapolis league, including Gerasa (Jerash), Philadelphia (Amman) and Gadara (Umm Qais), linked by the Via Traiana Nova.

Christianity spread under Byzantium, leaving churches with mosaic floors across Madaba, Mount Nebo and Umm ar-Rasas. In 636 Arab Muslim armies defeated Byzantium at the Yarmouk River, on today's northern border, and the Umayyad caliphs of Damascus built hunting lodges and bathhouses in the eastern desert. The Crusaders held the south in the 12th century from castles at Karak and Shobak, until Saladin's forces took them. Mamluks and then, from 1516, Ottomans ruled a thinly populated land of Bedouin tribes and small farming towns.

The modern state came from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Sharif Hussein of Mecca launched the Arab Revolt in 1916 with British support; his son Faisal's forces took Aqaba in 1917. After the war Britain and France divided the region, and in 1921 Hussein's son Abdullah became emir of Transjordan under British mandate, with Amman, then a small town settled by Circassian refugees, as capital. Independence came in 1946 as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Arab–Israeli wars reshaped the country. Jordan held the West Bank and East Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, and absorbed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in each war. King Abdullah I was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1951; his grandson Hussein reigned from 1953 to 1999, fought the Palestinian armed groups in the 1970–71 civil conflict known as Black September, and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. Abdullah II succeeded him in 1999 and has steered the country through the Iraq wars, the Syrian war and the Gaza war of 2023–25.

About 11.5 million people live in Jordan, most of them in a band of highland towns from Irbid through Amman to Karak. Roughly half or more are of Palestinian origin, many descended from refugees of 1948 and 1967, and most hold Jordanian citizenship. East Bank Jordanians, many with tribal roots, dominate the army, security services and much of the state. The relationship between the two communities is a constant, quiet theme of politics, football rivalries and everyday talk.

Tribal identity matters. Bedouin tribes such as the Bani Sakhr of the centre and the Huwaytat of the south, and smaller groups like the Bdul at Petra and the Zalabia in Wadi Rum, keep strong ties of loyalty, marriage and mediation. Tribal elders still settle disputes through customary law, and a person's surname often tells others where their family comes from. In Wadi Rum and around Petra, many families moved from tents into villages only in the last two generations, and tourism is now their main income.

Jordan has repeatedly absorbed people fleeing wars nearby. Circassians and Chechens came from the Caucasus in the late 19th century and founded modern Amman; Armenians arrived after 1915. Iraqis came after 1991 and 2003, and after 2011 more than a million Syrians, of whom around 1.3 million were counted by the government (check the current figure). Zaatari near Mafraq became one of the largest refugee camps in the world, and Palestinian camps in Amman have long since turned into dense city neighbourhoods.

Family is the centre of social life. Hospitality is a point of honour: guests are offered coffee, tea and food, and refusing everything can offend. Young people are highly educated, many women attend university, and yet youth unemployment is high and many graduates seek work in the Gulf. Honour and reputation shape behaviour in public, particularly around gender, and visitors notice the gap between the relaxed cafés of West Amman and conservative towns an hour away.

Islam is the state religion and about 95% of Jordanians are Sunni Muslims. The King's legitimacy draws partly on the Hashemite descent from the Prophet Muhammad, and the Hashemites have held custodianship of the Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem since the 1920s, a role recognised in the 1994 treaty. Friday noon prayers set the rhythm of the weekend, and Ramadan changes the whole country's timetable for a month.

Christians make up around 2–3% of the population, a small share but an old one. Most are Greek Orthodox, with Catholic, Melkite and Protestant communities, and their families have lived in Madaba, Fuheis, Karak, Salt and Amman since before Islam. Christmas is a public holiday, churches ring their bells openly, and Christians hold reserved seats in parliament. Madaba's churches and Christian-run liquor shops are part of that heritage.

The land is full of biblical sites. Mount Nebo is where Moses is said to have seen the Promised Land; the Baptism Site at Bethany beyond the Jordan is revered as the place of Jesus' baptism and is a UNESCO World Heritage site; Mukawir (Machaerus) is linked to John the Baptist's death. Pilgrims of many churches visit, and several popes have celebrated mass in Jordan. Islamic sites include shrines of the Prophet's companions in the Jordan Valley and the tomb of Aaron on a peak above Petra.

For visitors the practical rules are simple. Mosques welcome non-Muslims outside prayer times at larger sites such as the King Abdullah I Mosque in Amman; dress covers arms and legs, women cover their hair, and shoes come off. During Ramadan avoid eating, drinking or smoking in public by day. Proselytising Muslims is illegal. Conversation about religion is common and usually friendly; respect and curiosity go a long way.

Petra's rock-cut facades blend Nabataean, Hellenistic and Egyptian ideas. The Treasury (Al-Khazneh), probably a royal tomb of the 1st century AD, has Corinthian columns and a round tholos carved straight from the cliff; the Monastery (Ad-Deir) is larger and plainer. Most of Petra's 800-odd monuments are tombs, while houses were built of stone and have largely collapsed. The colour of the rock, banded red, ochre and white, is as much a part of the design as the carving.

Roman town planning is clearest at Jerash, with its oval plaza, colonnaded main street, two theatres, temples to Zeus and Artemis and an arch built for Emperor Hadrian's visit in 129. Amman's Roman Theatre, cut into the hillside below the Citadel, still hosts concerts. Umm Qais is built from black basalt, and the eastern desert castles show early Islamic art: Qusayr Amra, a small Umayyad bathhouse, has frescoes of hunting, bathing and the zodiac that are rare figurative art from the period.

Mosaics are Jordan's other great art. Byzantine and early Islamic workshops laid floors of stone cubes showing vines, animals, cities and hunting scenes. The Madaba map, from the 6th century, shows the Holy Land from Lebanon to Egypt with Jerusalem in detail and is the oldest surviving floor map of the region. Umm ar-Rasas has more town views; Mount Nebo's church has hunting scenes. Madaba's mosaic school trains craftspeople to restore them today.

Traditional crafts are tied to region and gender. Bedouin women weave goat-hair tents and rugs on ground looms; village women in the north once embroidered thobes with cross-stitch patterns that told where they came from, a tradition kept alive by cooperatives. Modern Amman has a lively art scene in Jabal Luweibdeh, with Darat al Funun and small galleries, and its limestone buildings, required by law in much of the city, give it its pale uniform look.

Jordanian food belongs to the wider Levant, with a Bedouin core. City breakfasts are hummus, fuul, falafel and fresh bread; mezze spreads of mutabbal, tabbouleh, pickles and olives open a long lunch; grills and stuffed vegetables follow. The Palestinian influence is strong in dishes like musakhan and maqluba, and Syrian cooks who arrived after 2011 brought new sweets and street food to Amman.

Mansaf is the national dish and a social act. Lamb is cooked in jameed, dried salted yogurt reconstituted into a sour sauce, and served over rice and flatbread on a large tray, topped with almonds or pine nuts. It is made for weddings, funerals, reconciliations and guests of honour, and traditionally eaten standing, with the right hand. Being offered the choicest meat by your host is an honour, and the size of the tray reflects the size of the welcome.

Bedouin cooking is built for the desert: zarb, a pit oven where meat and vegetables slow-cook under the sand; shrak, paper-thin bread baked on a domed metal plate; and coffee roasted, ground and brewed with cardamom in front of guests. The coffee ritual has rules: the host pours a little, guests accept with the right hand, and a gentle shake of the cup signals enough. Arabic coffee was added to UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2015 as shared regional practice.

Sweets and drinks close the day. Knafeh, hot cheese pastry soaked in syrup, is eaten from paper plates at downtown counters; baklava, qatayef in Ramadan and ma'amoul at Eid mark the calendar. Tea comes sweet with sage or mint. Jordan grows olives, tomatoes and dates, and small vineyards in the north produce wine sold alongside the craft beer brewed in Fuheis — alcohol that is legal but kept discreet in a mostly Muslim country.

Jordan is shaped by the Great Rift Valley. From the highlands at 1,000 m the land drops to the Dead Sea at about 430 m below sea level, the lowest land surface on earth, then rises again to the plateau and falls away east into basalt and limestone desert that covers most of the country. The south opens into the sandstone and granite mountains of Wadi Rum and down to the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan's only coast, about 27 km long.

Water is the defining constraint. Jordan has among the lowest renewable water resources per person in the world; households often get piped water once a week and store it in rooftop tanks. The Jordan River has been largely diverted upstream, and the Dead Sea falls by about a metre a year, leaving sinkholes along its shore. Projects to desalinate Red Sea water at Aqaba and pump it north are under way (check progress), and water deals with neighbours are part of regional diplomacy.

The economy runs on services, phosphate and potash from the Dead Sea, pharmaceuticals, remittances from Jordanians in the Gulf and foreign aid, especially from the United States and the EU. Tourism is one of the largest earners and one of the most exposed: arrivals rose to records in 2023 before the Gaza war cut them sharply, and each regional crisis empties Petra's hotels. Unemployment, particularly among young people and women, is high.

Nature protection has a local model. The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature runs reserves at Dana, Mujib, Ajloun, Azraq and elsewhere, and employs people from neighbouring villages as rangers, guides and lodge staff. The Arabian oryx has been reintroduced at Shaumari, and the 675 km Jordan Trail links villages from Umm Qais to Aqaba. For visitors, choosing these lodges, guides and cooperatives keeps money in rural communities.