Jordan: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Jordan known for?

Jordan is an Arab kingdom in the Middle East, standing at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The land is famous for old sites. Its attractions range from biblical places in the Jordan Rift Valley to the seaside on the Red Sea, and Amman, the capital, serves as the base from which travellers reach them.

The sea reaches only one corner. From the shores of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan packs a wide sweep of country into a compact kingdom.

Where is Jordan?

Jordan lies in the Southern Levant, part of West Asia, and shares long land borders on three sides. Syria lies to the north. Iraq is to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south, ranging Jordan alongside three larger neighbours across this corner of the Middle East.

To the west, the land drops into the Jordan Rift Valley. The Jordan River runs along that western border and flows into the Dead Sea, and beyond the valley lie Israel and the Palestinian territories. The valley marks the western edge.

In its southwest, Jordan reaches the sea. A short coastline meets the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aqaba, the country's only saltwater shore, set across that gulf from Egypt. This narrow window on the Red Sea is the kingdom's single outlet to open water.

Inland from the coast and the Rift Valley stands Amman, the capital and largest city, near the heart of the country. From the Jordan River in the west to the borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan holds a compact place at the meeting of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the crossroads the country has long occupied.

What is the history of Jordan?

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan took its modern form in 1946, when the country became an independent kingdom. Independence came that year. Long before it, the land of the Southern Levant lay at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, a corridor between continents and a route toward the biblical sites that still draw travellers.

It belongs to West Asia, within the wider Middle East. The ground is far older than the state. What became Jordan carried a deep human past well before 1946 gave it a modern name.

Since 1946, the kingdom has carried the name of the Hashemite dynasty at its head. The monarchy defines the modern state. Amman grew into the national capital and the largest city, the seat of government for the young kingdom and the anchor of its life in the Southern Levant.

The capital led the way. As an Arab kingdom in West Asia, Jordan has held the Hashemite name through its modern decades, tying a long past in the Levant to a national story that runs from 1946 onward. From an ancient crossroads to a modern state, the country keeps both threads.

What is Jordan like?

Jordan is an Arab country, and Arabic is the language of daily life across the kingdom. Arabic shapes the culture. As a land of the Southern Levant, Jordan shares the food, faith, and customs of the wider Arab Middle East, its people living at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

The language is the thread. Custom is shared across the region. Arabic ties Jordan to the whole Arab world of the Middle East, and the culture of the country reads as that of the Levant, carried in its own national way.

The kingdom's place between continents has left it open to many currents. Faith runs through the calendar. Jordan holds biblical sites honoured across more than one religion, and pilgrims as well as travellers come to the places named in scripture.

Amman, the capital, gathers the civic and cultural life of the nation, the largest stage for a culture rooted in Arabic and in the traditions of the Southern Levant. Old and modern sit side by side here. In the capital and beyond, the Southern Levant sets the rhythm of Jordanian life.

What is the climate of Jordan?

Jordan has a broadly subtropical climate, dry and warm for much of the year. By high summer the heat across Jordan turns fierce. The greatest heat settles over the interior and the Jordan Rift Valley, while the short winters can turn cooler and bring some rain toward the west of the country.

The seasons are clearly marked. Down by the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aqaba, the south stays warm even when the rest of the kingdom cools.

How do you get to Jordan?

Most visitors arrive in Jordan through Amman, the capital and largest city, which draws the country's main air links. The capital is the main way in. From Amman the roads run out across the kingdom, north toward the border with Syria, east toward Iraq, and south toward Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea coast at the Gulf of Aqaba.

Overland routes cross the frontiers. Travellers can also reach the kingdom by sea, at its short Red Sea coast on the Gulf of Aqaba.