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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 the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank and Israel to the west. The Jordan River, flowing into the Dead Sea, is located along the country's western border. Jordan has a small coastline along the Red Sea in its southwest, separated by the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt. Amman is Jordan's capital and largest city, as well as the most populous city in the Levant. Modern-day Jordan has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period. Three kingdoms emerged in Transjordan at the end of the Bronze Age: Ammon, Moab and Edom. In the third century BC, the Arab Nabataeans established their Kingdom centered in Petra. Later rulers of the Transjordan region include the Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, Byzantine, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and the Ottoman empires. After the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 during World War I, the Greater Syria region was partitioned by Britain and France. The Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921 by the Hashemite, then Emir, Abdullah I, and the emirate became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan gained independence and became officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The country captured and annexed the West Bank during the 1948 Arab–Israeli 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 89,342 km2 (34,495 sq mi), 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 (most of whom hold Jordanian citizenship) and 1.4 million Syrian refugees were present 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 Co-operation. The country has a high Human Development Index, ranking 102nd, 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. The country is a major tourist destination, also attracting medical tourism due to 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 the country'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 Hebrew word Yarad (Hebrew: ירד), meaning "the descender", reflecting the river's declivity. 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 (the founding holy text of Judaism, also referred to by Christians as the Old Testament) uses the term Hebrew: עבר הירדן, romanized: Ever ha'Yarden, lit. 'The other side of the Jordan' for the area. Early Arab chronicles call the river Al-Urdunn (a term cognate to the Hebrew Yarden). 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 (up to 20,000 years old) due to its location within the Levant, where various migrations of hominids 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 (10,000–4,500 BC), 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 (4500–3600 BC), 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. Fortified towns and urban centres first emerged in the southern Levant early in the Bronze Age (3600–1200 BC). 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, spreading cultural innovations and whole civilizations 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 (1200–332 BC), after the withdrawal of the Egyptians, Transjordan was home to the Kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab. The peoples of these kingdoms 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 Transjordanian kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab continually clashed with the neighbouring Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah, centered west of the Jordan River. One record of this is the Mesha Stele, erected by the.... Discover the Patrick Bisher Jon Land popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Patrick Bisher Jon Land books.