Middle East · The modern states
Jordan
Constitutional monarchy (Hashemite) · 1946 – present
Jordan is a young state on ancient land — home to the Iron Age kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom, the Nabataean capital at Petra, and cities of the Roman Decapolis. The modern state descends from the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, when Sharif Hussein of Mecca and his sons, with British backing, rose against the Ottomans.
- Type
- Constitutional monarchy (Hashemite)
- Existed
- 1946 – present
- Shown on the map
- 1947–1957, 1960–2024 (2 periods)
- Capital
- Amman
- Peak area
- ~104,000 km² (including the West Bank, 1948–1967; ~89,300 km² today)
- Region
- Middle East
Origins & rise
Jordan is a young state on ancient land — home to the Iron Age kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom, the Nabataean capital at Petra, and cities of the Roman Decapolis. The modern state descends from the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, when Sharif Hussein of Mecca and his sons, with British backing, rose against the Ottomans. After the French destroyed Faisal's Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920, Hussein's second son Abdullah moved into the territory east of the Jordan River, and Britain — which held the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine — carved out the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921 under Abdullah, formally separated from Palestine by the Transjordan Memorandum of 1922. The emirate, garrisoned by the British-officered Arab Legion, won full independence on 25 May 1946 as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.
History & key rulers
Abdullah I's Arab Legion was the most effective Arab army of the 1948 war with Israel; it secured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Jordan formally annexed in 1950 (recognized only by Britain and Pakistan), renaming the state the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Abdullah was assassinated at al-Aqsa Mosque in 1951 by a Palestinian gunman; after the brief, illness-clouded reign of his son Talal, his grandson Hussein took the throne in 1953 and ruled for 46 years. Hussein dismissed the Legion's British commander Glubb Pasha in 1956, weathered the 1958 crisis (in which British troops briefly protected the throne), and in 1958 briefly joined Iraq in the short-lived Arab Federation. Jordan lost the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967, then expelled the PLO in the Black September civil war of 1970–71. Hussein disengaged legally from the West Bank in 1988 and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 — only the second Arab state to do so. His son Abdullah II has reigned since 1999, steering a resource-poor kingdom through the Iraq War refugee influx and the Arab Spring with constitutional amendments and cautious reform.
Government, religion & culture
Jordan is a hereditary constitutional monarchy in which the king retains substantial executive powers, appointing the prime minister and Senate; an elected House of Representatives sits below. The population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, with a small Christian minority; roughly half of Jordanians are of Palestinian origin, a demographic fact central to national politics. Arabic is official. The monarchy cultivates its Hashemite lineage — descent from the Prophet Muhammad — as a source of legitimacy, and the king remains custodian of Jerusalem's Islamic holy sites under the peace treaty.
Peak & territory
At its peak (1950–1967) the kingdom controlled both banks of the Jordan, some 104,000 km² including the ~5,900 km² West Bank; since 1967 its ~89,300 km² lie east of the river, bounded by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank, with a tiny Red Sea outlet at Aqaba.
Present status
Jordan remains a stable, Western-aligned monarchy, a key US partner and refuge for successive waves of Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian refugees, though chronically dependent on foreign aid and water-stressed.
Common questions
- What was Jordan?
- Jordan is a young state on ancient land — home to the Iron Age kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom, the Nabataean capital at Petra, and cities of the Roman Decapolis. The modern state descends from the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, when Sharif Hussein of Mecca and his sons, with British backing, rose against the Ottomans.
- When did Jordan exist?
- Jordan existed 1946 – present. On this map it is drawn 1947–1957, 1960–2024.
- What was the capital of Jordan?
- Jordan was ruled from Amman.
- How large was Jordan at its height?
- At its peak (1950–1967) the kingdom controlled both banks of the Jordan, some 104,000 km² including the ~5,900 km² West Bank; since 1967 its ~89,300 km² lie east of the river, bounded by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank, with a tiny Red Sea outlet at Aqaba.
- Who ruled Jordan?
- Abdullah I's Arab Legion was the most effective Arab army of the 1948 war with Israel; it secured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Jordan formally annexed in 1950 (recognized only by Britain and Pakistan), renaming the state the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Abdullah was assassinated at al-Aqsa Mosque in 1951 by a Palestinian gunman; after the brief, illness-clouded reign of his son Talal, his grandson Hussein took the throne in 1953 and ruled for 46 years.
- What is the present status of Jordan?
- Jordan remains a stable, Western-aligned monarchy, a key US partner and refuge for successive waves of Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian refugees, though chronically dependent on foreign aid and water-stressed.
- How was Jordan governed?
- Jordan is a hereditary constitutional monarchy in which the king retains substantial executive powers, appointing the prime minister and Senate; an elected House of Representatives sits below.
Sources
Every source below was consulted while writing this entry.
- Wikipedia, "History of Jordan" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jordan
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Jordan" www.britannica.com/place/Jordan
This entry was written from the sources above and last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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