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 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 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 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.
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, it is most plausible that it derives from the Semitic word 'Yarad', 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. Much of the area that makes up modern Jordan was historically called Transjordan, meaning "across the Jordan"; the term is used to denote the lands east of the river. The Hebrew Bible uses the term עבר הירדן for the area. Early Arab chronicles call the river Al-Urdunn. Jund Al-Urdunn was a military district around the river in the early Islamic era. Later, during the Crusades in the beginning of the second millennium, a lordship was established in the area under the name of Oultrejordain.
History
Ancient period
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 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.During the Neolithic period, there was a transition there from a hunter-gatherer culture to a culture with established populous agricultural villages. 'Ain Ghazal, one such village located at a site in the eastern part of present-day Amman, is one of the largest known prehistoric settlements in the Near East. Dozens of plaster statues of the human form, dating to 7250 BC or earlier, have been uncovered there. They are one of the oldest large-scale representations of humans ever found. During the Chalcolithic period, several villages emerged in Transjordan including Tulaylet Ghassul in the Jordan Valley; a series of circular stone enclosures in the eastern basalt desert from the same period have long baffled archaeologists.
File:Mesha Stele .jpg|thumb|200px|upright|The Mesha Stele records the glory of Mesha, King of Moab, displayed at the Louvre Museum.
Fortified towns and urban centres first emerged in the southern Levant early in the Bronze Age. Wadi Feynan became a regional centre for copper extraction: the metal was exploited on a large scale to produce bronze. Trade and movement of people in the Middle East peaked, causing cultural innovations and whole civilisations to spread. Villages in Transjordan expanded rapidly in areas with reliable water-resources and arable land. Ancient Egyptian populations expanded towards the Levant and came to control both banks of the Jordan River.
During the Iron Age, after the withdrawal of the Egyptians, Transjordan was home to the kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab. These peoples spoke Semitic languages of the Canaanite group. Archaeologists have concluded that their polities were tribal kingdoms rather than states. Ammon was located in the Amman plateau; Moab in the highlands east of the Dead Sea; and Edom in the area around Wadi Araba in the south. The northwestern region of the Transjordan, known then as Gilead, was settled by the Israelites.
The three kingdoms continually clashed with the neighbouring Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah, centred west of the Jordan River. One record of this is the Mesha Stele, erected by the Moabite king Mesha in 840 BC. In an inscription on it, he lauds himself for the building projects that he initiated in Moab and commemorates his glory and his victory against the Israelites. The stele constitutes one of the most important archeological parallels to accounts recorded in the Bible. At the same time, Israel and the Kingdom of Aram-Damascus competed for control of the Gilead.
Around 740–720 BC, Israel and Aram-Damascus were conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab were subjugated but were allowed to maintain some degree of independence. Then in 627 BC, following after the disintegration of the Assyrians' empire, Babylonians took control of the area. Although the kingdoms supported the Babylonians against Judah in the 597 BC sack of Jerusalem, they rebelled against Babylon a decade later. The kingdoms were reduced to vassals, a status they retained under the Persian and Hellenic empires. By the beginning of Roman rule around 63 BC, the kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab had lost their distinct identities and were assimilated into the Roman culture. Some Edomites survived longer – driven by the Nabataeans, they had migrated to southern Judea, which became known as Idumaea. They were later converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans.
Classical period
's conquest of the Persian Empire in 332 BC introduced Hellenistic culture to the Middle East. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, the empire split among his generals, and in the end much of Transjordan was disputed between the Ptolemies based in Egypt and the Seleucids based in Syria. The Nabataeans, nomadic Arabs based south of Edom, managed to establish an independent kingdom in 169 BC by exploiting the struggle between the two Greek powers. The Nabataean Kingdom controlled much of the trade routes of the region, and it stretched south along the Red Sea coast into the Hejaz desert, up to as far north as Damascus, which it controlled for a short period. The Nabataeans massed a fortune from their control of the trade routes, often drawing the envy of their neighbours. Petra, Nabataea's capital, flourished in the 1st century AD, driven by its extensive water irrigation systems and agriculture. The Nabataeans were talented stone carvers, building their most elaborate structure, Al-Khazneh, in the first century AD. It is believed to be the mausoleum of the Arab Nabataean King Aretas IV.Roman legions under Pompey conquered much of the Levant in 63 BC, inaugurating a period of Roman rule that lasted four centuries. In 106 AD, Emperor Trajan annexed Nabataea unopposed and rebuilt the King's Highway which became known as the Via Traiana Nova road. The Romans gave the Greek cities of Transjordan—Philadelphia, Gerasa, Gedara, Pella and Arbila —and other Hellenistic cities in Palestine and southern Syria, a level of autonomy by forming the Decapolis, a ten-city league. Jerash is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the East; it was even visited by Emperor Hadrian during his journey to Palestine.
File:Jerash 01.jpg|thumb|right|The Oval Forum of Jerash, then member of the ten-city Greco-Roman league, the Decapolis, seven of which are present in modern-day Jordan
In 324 AD, the Roman Empire split and the Eastern Roman Empire, later known as the Byzantine Empire, continued to control or influence the region until 636. Christianity had become legal within the empire in 313 after co-emperors Constantine and Licinius signed an edict of toleration. In 380, the Edict of Thessalonica made Christianity the official state religion. Transjordan prospered during the Byzantine era, and Christian churches were built throughout the region.
The Aqaba Church in Ayla was built during this era. It is considered to be the world's first purpose built Christian church. Umm ar-Rasas in southern Amman contains at least 16 Byzantine churches. Meanwhile, Petra's importance declined as sea trade routes emerged, and after a 363 earthquake destroyed many structures it declined further, eventually being abandoned. The Sasanian Empire in the east became the Byzantines' rivals, and frequent confrontations sometimes led to the Sasanids controlling some parts of the region, including Transjordan.