• Land
• People
  • Settlement patterns
• Economy
• Government and society
• Cultural life
• History
  • Jordan under King Ḥussein
  • Reign of ʿAbdullāh II

A specialist in the cultural and historical geography of the United States, Jordan-Bychkov was particularly interested in the diffusion of Old World culture in North America that helped produce the vivid geographical mosaic evident today. As the crossroads of the Middle East, the lands of Jordan and Palestine have served as a strategic nexus connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe. Thus, since the dawn of civilization, Jordan's geography has given it an important role to play as a conduit for trade and communications, connecting east and west, north and south.

Mineral resources include large deposits of phosphates, potash, limestone, and marble, as well as dolomite, kaolin, and salt. More recently discovered minerals include barite (the principal ore of the metallic element barium), quartzite, gypsum (used as a fertilizer), and feldspar, and there are unexploited deposits of copper, uranium, and shale oil. Although the country has no significant oil deposits, modest reserves of natural gas are located in its eastern desert. In 2003 the first section of a new pipeline from Egypt began delivering natural gas to Al-ʿAqabah.

Virtually all electric power in Jordan is generated by thermal plants, most of which are oil-fired. The major power stations are linked by a transmission system. By the early 21st century the government had completed a program to link the major cities and towns by a countrywide grid.

Beginning in the final decades of the 20th century, access to water became a major problem for Jordan—as well as a point of conflict among states in the region—as overuse of the Jordan River (and its tributary, the Yarmūk River) and excessive tapping of the region’s natural aquifers led to shortages throughout Jordan and surrounding countries. In 2000 Jordan and Syria secured funding for constructing a dam on the Yarmūk River that, in addition to storing water for Jordan, would also generate electricity for Syria. Construction of the Waḥdah (“Unity”) Dam began in 2004.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is concentrated around Amman. The extraction of phosphate, petroleum refining, and cement production are the country’s major heavy industries. Food, clothing, and a variety of consumer goods also are produced.

Finance

The Central Bank of Jordan (Al-Bank al-Markazī al-Urdunī) issues the dinar, the national currency. There are many national and foreign banks in addition to credit institutions. The government has participated with private enterprise in establishing the largest mining, industrial, and tourist firms in the country and also owns a significant share of the largest companies. The Amman Stock Exchange (Būrṣat ʿAmmān; formerly the Amman Financial Market) is one of the largest stock markets in the Arab world.

Trade

Jordan’s primary exports are clothing, chemicals and chemical products, and potash and phosphates; the main imports are machinery and apparatus, crude petroleum, and food products. Major sources of imports are Saudi Arabia, the United States, China, and the European Union (EU). Major destinations for exports are the United States, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. In 2000 Jordan signed a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States. The value of exports has been growing, but it does not cover that of imports; the deficit is financed by foreign grants, loans, and other forms of capital transfers. Although Jordan’s trade deficit has been large, it has been offset somewhat by revenue from tourism, remittances sent by Jordanians working abroad, earnings from foreign investments made by the central bank, and subsidies from other Arab and non-Arab governments.

Services

Services, including public administration, defense, and retail sales, form the single most important component of Jordan’s economy in both value and employment. The country’s vulnerable geography has led to high military expenditures, which are well above the world average.

The Jordanian government vigorously promotes tourism, and the number of tourists visiting Jordan has grown dramatically since the mid-1990s. Visitors come mainly from the West to see the old biblical cities of the Jordan Valley and such wonders as the ancient city of Petra, designated a World Heritage site in 1985. Income from tourism, mostly consisting of foreign reserves, has become a major factor in Jordan’s efforts to reduce its balance-of-payments deficit.

Labour and taxation

Jordan has also lost much of its skilled labour to neighbouring countries—as many as 400,000 people left the kingdom in the early 1980s—although the problem has eased somewhat. This change is a result both of better employment opportunities within Jordan itself and of a curb on foreign labour demands by the Persian Gulf states.

The majority of the workforce is men, with women constituting roughly one-seventh of the total. The government employs nearly half of those working. About one-seventh of the population is unemployed, although income per capita has increased. Labour unions and employer organizations are legal, but the trade-union movement is weak; this is partly offset by the government, which has its own procedures for settling labour disputes.

About half of the government’s revenue is derived from taxes. Even though the government has made a great effort to reform the income tax, both to increase revenue and to redistribute income, revenue from indirect taxes continues to exceed that from direct taxes. Tax measures have been adopted to increase the rate of savings necessary for financing investments, and the government has implemented tax exemptions on foreign investments and on the transfer of foreign profits and capital.

Transportation and telecommunications

Jordan has a main, secondary, and rural road network, most of which is hard-surfaced. This roadway system, maintained by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, not only links the major cities and towns but also connects the kingdom with neighbouring countries. One of the main traffic arteries is the Amman–Jarash–Al-Ramthā highway, which links Jordan with Syria. The route from Amman via Maʿān to the port of Al-ʿAqabah is the principal route to the sea. From Maʿān the Desert Highway passes through Al-Mudawwarah, linking Jordan with Saudi Arabia. The Amman-Jerusalem highway, passing through Nāʿūr, is a major tourist artery. The government-operated Hejaz-Jordan Railway extends from Darʿā in the north via Amman to Maʿān in the south. The Aqaba Railway Corporation operates a southern line that runs to the port of Al-ʿAqabah and connects to the Hejaz-Jordan Railway at Baṭn al-Ghūl. Rail connections also join Darʿā in the north with Damascus, Syria.

Royal Jordanian is the country’s official airline, offering worldwide service. Queen Alia International Airport near Al-Jīzah, south of Amman, opened in 1983. Amman and Al-ʿAqabah have smaller international airports.

In 1994 Jordan introduced a program to reform its telecommunication system. The government-owned Jordan Telecommunications Corporation, the sole service provider, had been unable to meet demand or provide adequate service, particularly in rural areas; it was privatized in 1997. Since then, the use of cellular telephones has mushroomed, far outstripping standard telephone use. In addition, Internet use has grown dramatically.

• Land
• People
  • Settlement patterns
• Economy
• Government and society
• Cultural life
• History
  • Jordan under King Ḥussein
  • Reign of ʿAbdullāh II

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Jordan, Arabcountry of Southwest Asia, in the rocky desert of the northern Arabian Peninsula.

Jordan is a young state that occupies an ancient land, one that bears the traces of many civilizations. Separated from ancient Palestine by the Jordan River, the region played a prominent role in biblical history. The ancient biblical kingdoms of Moab, Gilead, and Edom lie within its borders, as does the famed red stone city of Petra, the capital of the Nabatean kingdom and of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. British traveler Gertrude Bell said of Petra, “It is like a fairy tale city, all pink and wonderful.” Part of the Ottoman Empire until 1918 and later a mandate of the United Kingdom, Jordan has been an independent kingdom since 1946. It is among the most politically liberal countries of the Arab world, and, although it shares in the troubles affecting the region, its rulers have expressed a commitment to maintaining peace and stability.

The capital and largest city in the country is Amman—named for the Ammonites, who made the city their capital in the 13th century bce. Amman was later a great city of Middle Eastern antiquity, Philadelphia, of the Roman Decapolis, and now serves as one of the region’s principal commercial and transportation centres as well as one of the Arab world’s major cultural capitals.

Land

Slightly smaller in area than the country of Portugal, Jordan is bounded to the north by Syria, to the east by Iraq, to the southeast and south by Saudi Arabia, and to the west by Israel and the West Bank. The West Bank area (so named because it lies just west of the Jordan River) was under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, but in 1988 Jordan renounced its claims to the area. Jordan has 16 miles (26 km) of coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba in the southwest, where Al-ʿAqabah, its only port, is located.

Relief

Jordan has three major physiographic regions (from east to west): the desert, the uplands east of the Jordan River, and the Jordan Valley (the northwest portion of the great East African Rift System).

The desert region is mostly within the Syrian Desert—an extension of the Arabian Desert—and occupies the eastern and southern parts of the country, comprising more than four-fifths of its territory. The desert’s northern part is composed of volcanic lava and basalt, and its southern part of outcrops of sandstone and granite. The landscape is much eroded, primarily by wind. The uplands east of the Jordan River, an escarpment overlooking the rift valley, have an average elevation of 2,000–3,000 feet (600–900 metres) and rise to about 5,755 feet (1,754 metres) at Mount Ramm, Jordan’s highest point, in the south. Outcrops of sandstone, chalk, limestone, and flint extend to the extreme south, where igneous rocks predominate.

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The Jordan Valley drops to about 1,410 feet (430 metres) below sea level at the Dead Sea, the lowest natural point on Earth’s surface.

Drainage

The Jordan River, approximately 186 miles (300 km) in length, meanders south, draining the waters of Lake Tiberias (better known as the Sea of Galilee), the Yarmūk River, and the valley streams of both plateaus into the Dead Sea, which occupies the central area of the valley. The soil of its lower reaches is highly saline, and the shores of the Dead Sea consist of salt marshes that do not support vegetation. To its south, Wadi al-ʿArabah (also called Wadi al-Jayb), a completely desolate region, is thought to contain mineral resources.

In the northern uplands several valleys containing perennial streams run west; around Al-Karak they flow west, east, and north; south of Al-Karak intermittent valley streams run east toward Al-Jafr Depression.

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Soils

The country’s best soils are found in the Jordan Valley and in the area southeast of the Dead Sea. The topsoil in both regions consists of alluvium—deposited by the Jordan River and washed from the uplands, respectively—with the soil in the valley generally being deposited in fans spread over various grades of marl.

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• ¹In October 2013 two royal decrees to dissolve the 60-member Senate and to appoint a new 75-member Senate were issued; 9 seats are reserved for women.
• ²Decreased by 20 members after elections on September 20, 2016; 15 seats are reserved for women.