68 Facts About Jordan

Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and east, Iraq to the northeast, Syria to the north, and the Palestinian West Bank, Israel, and the Dead Sea to the west.

Jordan renounced its claim to the territory in 1988, and became the second Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

Jordan is a founding member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation.

Jordan has been repeatedly referred to as an "oasis of stability" in the turbulent region of the Middle East.

From as early as 1948, Jordan has accepted refugees from multiple neighboring countries in conflict.

Related searches

Jordan has a high Human Development Index, ranking 102nd, and is considered an upper middle income economy.

Jordan takes its name from the Jordan River which forms much of the country's northwestern border.

Jordan is rich in Paleolithic remains due to its location within the Levant where expansions of hominids out of Africa converged.

Jordan became a member of the United Nations on 14 December 1955.

On 15 May 1948, as part of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan intervened in Palestine together with many other Arab states.

On 12 June 1950, the Arab League declared that the annexation was a temporary, practical measure and that Jordan was holding the territory as a "trustee" pending a future settlement.

Jordan signed a military pact with Egypt just before Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt to begin the Six-Day War in June 1967, where Jordan and Syria joined the war.

At the Rabat summit conference in 1974, in the aftermath of the Yom-Kippur War, Jordan agreed, along with the rest of the Arab League, that the PLO was the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".

At the 1991 Madrid Conference, Jordan agreed to negotiate a peace treaty sponsored by the US and the Soviet Union.

In 1997, in retribution for a bombing, Israeli agents entered Jordan using Canadian passports and poisoned Khaled Meshal, a senior Hamas leader living in Jordan.

However, during the following years Jordan's economy experienced hardship as it dealt with the effects of the Great Recession and spillover from the Arab Spring.

Abdullah and Jordan are viewed with contempt by Islamic extremists for the country's peace treaty with Israel and its relationship with the West.

Jordan was left largely unscathed from the violence that swept the region despite an influx of 1.

On 4 April 2021, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the former crown prince of Jordan, was placed under house arrest of conspiracy theories with foreign elements for a "malicious plot" to destabilize the kingdom.

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 civilization.

Jordan has a 26 kilometres shoreline on the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, but is otherwise landlocked.

Jordan has a diverse range of habitats, ecosystems and biota due to its varied landscapes and environments.

Nature reserves in Jordan include the Dana Biosphere Reserve, the Azraq Wetland Reserve, the Shaumari Wildlife Reserve and the Mujib Nature Reserve.

Jordan's constitution, adopted in 1952 and amended a number of times since, is the legal framework that governs the monarch, government, bicameral legislature and judiciary.

Jordan can declare war and peace, ratify laws and treaties, convene and close legislative sessions, call and postpone elections, dismiss the government and dissolve the parliament.

Related searches

Jordan is divided into 12 governorates (informally grouped into three regions: northern, central, southern).

Jordan refocused the government's agenda on economic reform, during his first year.

Jordan has around 50 political parties representing nationalist, leftist, Islamist, and liberal ideologies.

Jordan ranked first among the Arab states and 78th globally in the Human Freedom Index in 2015, and ranked 55th out of 175 countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index issued by Transparency International in 2014, where 175th is most corrupt.

Later, Jordan restored its relations with Western countries through its participation in the enforcement of UN sanctions against Iraq and in the Southwest Asia peace process.

Jordan is a key ally of the US and UK and, together with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, is one of only three Arab nations to have signed peace treaties with Israel, Jordan's direct neighbour.

Jordan is a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and of the Arab League.

Jordan provides extensive training to the security forces of several Arab countries.

Jordan has dispatched several field hospitals to conflict zones and areas affected by natural disasters across the region.

In 2014, Jordan joined an aerial bombardment campaign by an international coalition led by the United States against the Islamic State as part of its intervention in the Syrian Civil War.

In 2015, Jordan participated in the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen against the Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was deposed in the 2011 uprising.

Jordan is classified by the World Bank as an "upper-middle income" country.

In 2000, Jordan joined the World Trade Organization and signed the Jordan–United States Free Trade Agreement, thus becoming the first Arab country to establish a free trade agreement with the United States.

Jordan enjoys advanced status with the EU, which has facilitated greater access to export to European markets.

Jordan incurred billions of dollars in losses because it had to substitute more expensive heavy-fuel oils to generate electricity.

Proportion of well-educated and skilled workers in Jordan is among the highest in the region in sectors such as ICT and industry, due to a relatively modern educational system.

Flows of remittances to Jordan grew rapidly, particularly during the end of the 1970s and 1980s, and remains an important source of external funding.

Jordan is ranked as having the 35th best infrastructure in the world, one of the highest rankings in the developing world, according to the 2010 World Economic Forum's Index of Economic Competitiveness.

Jordan has three commercial airports, all receiving and dispatching international flights.

Jordan has been a medical tourism destination in the Middle East since the 1970s.

Related searches

Jordan is the region's top medical tourism destination, as rated by the World Bank, and fifth in the world overall.

Jordan is a hub for natural treatment methods in both Ma'in Hot Springs and the Dead Sea.

The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to the country and to Israel and Palestine, while the brine will be carried to the Dead Sea to help stabilise its levels.

Jordan built a liquified natural gas port in Aqaba in 2012 to temporarily substitute the supply, while formulating a strategy to rationalize energy consumption and to diversify its energy sources.

Jordan has the 5th largest oil-shale reserves in the world, which could be commercially exploited in the central and northwestern regions of the country.

Jordan aims to benefit from its large uranium reserves by tapping nuclear energy.

In 2018, the commission announced that Jordan was in talks with multiple companies to build the country's first commercial nuclear plant, a helium-cooled reactor that was scheduled for completion by 2025.

Jordan was ranked 81st in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, up from 86th in 2019.

Jordan was selected as the location for the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East facility, supported by UNESCO and CERN.

The capital and largest city of Jordan is Amman, which is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities and one of the most modern in the Arab world.

Up to 1, 000, 000 Iraqis moved to Jordan following the Iraq War in 2003, and most of them have returned.

Jordan contains some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, dating as early as the 1st century AD after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Qualified medics, a favourable investment climate and Jordan's stability has contributed to the success of this sector.

On 1 June 2007, Jordan Hospital was the first general specialty hospital to gain the international accreditation JCAHO.

Jordan has the highest number of researchers in research and development per million people among all the 57 countries that are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

In Jordan there are 8060 researchers per million people, while the world average is 2532 per million.

The art scene has been developing in the past few years and Jordan has been a haven for artists from surrounding countries.

The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts is a major contemporary art museum located in Amman.

Music in Jordan is developing with a lot of new bands and artists, who are now popular in the Middle East.

Jordan unveiled its first underwater military museum off the coast of Aqaba.

Related searches

Jordan has a strong policy for inclusive sport and invests heavily in encouraging girls and women to participate in all sports.

In 2016, Jordan hosted the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, with 16 teams representing six continents.

Basketball is another sport that Jordan continues to punch above its weight in, having qualified to the FIBA 2010 World Basketball Cup and more recently reaching the 2019 World Cup in China.