Jordan
Capital: Amman · Western Asia
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia.
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The desert castle Qasr Kharana in Jordan.
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( left -) Egypt and the river Nile , northerly: the mediterranean sea, northerly again: parts of south Greece, Armenia, Turkey; westerly: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar the Red Sea…
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The Monastery, Petra, Jordan
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Did you know?
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.
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Jerash, view from the Hippodrome to the forum
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Etymology
Jordan takes its name from the Jordan River, which forms much of Jordan's northwestern border. While several theories for the origin of the river's name have been proposed (such as relation to the Egyptian loanword 'yǝʾor'; 'big river', the Nile), it is most plausible that it derives from the Semitic word 'Yarad' ( ירד; 'flow down' or 'descend"), referring to the river's declivity and with cognates found in Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Mandaic, etc.
The earliest use of the name is found in the ancient Egyptian Papyrus Anastasi I as Yārdon, probably dating to the reign of Rameses II.
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History
The oldest known evidence of hominid habitation in Jordan dates back at least 200,000 years. Jordan is a rich source of Paleolithic human remains (up to 20,000 years old) due to its location within the Levant, where migrations out of Africa converged, and its more humid climate during the Late Pleistocene, which resulted in the formation of numerous remains-preserving wetlands in the region. Past lakeshore environments attracted different groups of hominids, and several remains of tools dating from the Late Pleistocene have been found there. Scientists have found the world's oldest known evidence of bread-making at a 14,500-year-old Natufian site in Jordan's northeastern desert.
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Geography
Jordan sits strategically at the crossroads of the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe, in the Levant area of the Fertile Crescent, a cradle of civilisation. Its area is 89,341 square kilometres (34,495 sq mi), and it is 400 kilometres (250 mi) long between its northernmost and southernmost points; Umm Qais and Aqaba respectively. The kingdom lies between 29° and 34° N, and 34° and 40° E. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and the east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, and Israel and Palestine (West Bank) to the west.
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Government and politics
Jordan is a unitary state under a semi-constitutional monarchy. Its constitution, adopted in 1952 and amended a number of times since, is the legal framework that governs the monarch, government, bicameral legislature and judiciary. The king retains wide executive and legislative powers from the government and parliament. The king exercises his powers through the government that he appoints for a four-year term, which is responsible before the parliament that is made up of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The judiciary is independent according to the constitution but in practice often lacks independence.
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Economy
Jordan is classified by the World Bank as a lower middle income country. The World Food Programme classified Jordan's economy as upper-middle income, as well as being poor in resources with limited land for agriculture. Approximately 15.7% of the population lived on or below the national poverty line in 2018, while almost a third fell below the national poverty line during some time of the year, known as transient poverty. The economy, which has a GDP of $39.453 billion (as of 2016), grew at an average rate of 8% per annum between 2004 and 2008, and around 2.6% from 2010 onwards.
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Demographics
The 2015 census showed a population of 9,531,712 (female: 47%; males: 53%). Around 2.9 million (30%) were non-citizens, a figure including refugees and illegal immigrants. There were 1,977,534 households in 2015, with an average of 4.8 persons per household, compared to 6.7 persons per household for the census of 1979. The population of Amman was 65,754 in 1946, but exceeded 4 million in 2015.
Arabs make up about 98% of the population. The remaining 2% consist largely of peoples from the Caucasus including Circassians, Armenians, and Chechens, along with smaller minority groups. About 84.1% of the population live in urban areas.
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Culture
Many institutions aim to increase cultural awareness of Jordanian art and to represent artistic movements in fields such as paintings, sculpture, graffiti and photography. The art scene has been developing in the past few years, and Jordan has been a haven for artists from surrounding countries. In January 2016, for the first time ever, a Jordanian film called Theeb was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
The largest museum is The Jordan Museum.
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