Jordan

المملكة الأردنّيّة الهاشميّة
al-Mamlaka al-Urdunniyya al-Hāschimiyya
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
flag coat of arms
Official language	Arabic
Capital	Amman
State and form of government	Constitutional monarchy
Head of state	King Abdullah II
Head of government	Prime Minister So far Al-Khasawneh
surface	89,342 km²
population	10.1 million ( 88th ) (2019; estimate)
Population density	112 inhabitants per km²
Population development	+ 1.5% (estimate for 2019)
gross domestic product Total (nominal) Total ( PPP ) GDP / inh. (nom.) GDP / inh. (KKP)	2019 $ 45 billion ( 92nd ) $ 106 billion ( 86. ) 4,426 USD ( 112. ) 10,530 USD ( 117. )
Human Development Index	0.729 ( 102nd ) (2019)
currency	Jordanian Dinar (JOD)
independence	May 25, 1946 (from the United Kingdom )
National anthem	al-Salam al-Maliki al-Urdunni
Time zone	UTC + 2
License Plate	JOR
ISO 3166	JO , JOR, 400
Internet TLD	.jo and .الاردن
Phone code	+962

Amman Irbid Gerasa Zarqa Madaba Kerak Maʿan Aqaba Jebel Umm ad ‑ Dami ISRAEL SYRIA IRAQ SAUDI ARABIA WEST Jordan LAND RED SEA Dead sea

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ( Arabic الأُرْدُنّ al-Urdunn ) is an Arab state in the Middle East . It borders Israel , the West Bank part of the Palestinian Territory , with the border under Israeli control, Syria , Iraq , Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aqaba , on which it has a maritime border with Egypt . Jordan is one of the so-called Mashrek states.

geography

Wadi Rum

Jordan, located in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula , is a country with a high proportion of desert and can be divided into three major landscapes from west to east: The Jordan Rift , which runs from north to south, reaches the deepest dry point on the earth's surface at the Dead Sea ( 425 m below sea level ). The Great Rift Valley continues south across the Gulf of Aqaba into the Red Sea . Here the country has access to the ocean via a narrow coastal strip around Aqaba . The East Jordan mountainous country rises in a rugged, jagged wall above the Jordan Rift. This fold mountain reaches 1754 meters in the Jabal Ram (second highest mountain in the country after the Jabal Umm ad-Dami near Aqaba) and is divided by several plateaus. The northern part is formed by the Gilead Mountains, on whose plateaus the cities of Amman , Zarqa and Irbid are located. The desert table lands adjoining the mountainous region in the east take up about two thirds of Jordan.

climate

The north-west of the country has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, humid winters and an annual rainfall of up to 800 mm. In the east and south there is less precipitation (100 mm and less). In the vast majority of Jordan there is a continental desert climate . The mean temperatures in Amman are 31 to 38 ° C in summer and 13 to 19 ° C in winter.

The FAO classifies a country as arid if there are less than 1000 cubic meters available per inhabitant per year. According to an estimate from 2014, every inhabitant in Jordan had more than 120 cubic meters per year. According to forecasts, this amount could drop further to just 90 cubic meters per year by 2025. In 2006, the Jordan, as the country's main water supply, only carried around ten percent of the water volume in the 1960s. The water of the Jordan is mainly derived from Israel and used for drinking water supply. Due to the political tensions and military conflicts, there are no agreements on the use of the Jordan water between the neighboring countries. The Jordan was once the main tributary of the Dead Sea, today it reaches it as a trickle. Therefore, the Dead Sea is expected to dry out further to a pond within the next few decades.

Dwindling water resources and a rapidly growing population will halve per capita water consumption in Jordan by the end of the century due to falling supplies and rising prices. Without comprehensive reforms, few households will have access to at least 40 liters of tap water per capita per day. This development affects low-income parts of the country the most. Over 90 percent of households there will fall below the 40 liter per capita and day mark in eleven months per year. These are some of the forecasts published by an international team of scientists in March 2021.

Flora and fauna

Due to the different climatic conditions, the vegetation also varies. The large arid areas and the mountainous country are sparsely overgrown with thorn bush vegetation such as tamarisk and umbrella acacia . In the steppes there are also larger areas of grass that are used by Bedouins . Originally the west of the country was heavily forested; North of Amman, afforestation is showing its first successes, there are larger and smaller forest areas with cypresses , oaks , acacias and mostly pines .

The local fauna is quite diverse despite the barren vegetation: vultures , hamsters and golden eagles can be found as well as hyenas , black cats , ducks , wolves , gazelles , ibexes and wild goats. There are different species of lizards , butterflies and scorpions . There are 24 species of bat in Jordan  . The ostrich was only eradicated in Jordan in the 20th century.

population

Jordan population pyramid 2016

The official language is Arabic . Furthermore, regionally different Bedouin dialects and the respective languages ​​are spoken by ethnic minorities.

The population growth is 0.9 percent; a good 35 percent of Jordanians are under 15 years of age. As a result of strong rural exodus, around 79 percent of the population live in cities, especially in the north-west of the country. The average life expectancy between 2010 and 2015 was 73.8 years (women: 75.5 years, men: 72.2 years).

The population is on average 22.8 years old, a woman has an average of 3.14 children in the course of her life (as of 2018).

Due to the high birth rate and the millions of refugees from Palestine and Syria in the country, the population is now almost 20 times as high as it was in 1950. In 2017, 33.3% of the population was born abroad.

Population development

Population development in millions of inhabitants

year	population
1950	481,000
1960	932,000
1970	1,719,000
1980	2,374,000
1990	3,561,000
2000	5,103,000
2010	7,182,000
2019	10,102,000

ethnicities

According to the 2011 results, the majority of the population consisted of 98 percent Arabs, including the 1,835,704 registered Arab Palestinians without Jordanian citizenship and the approximately 700,000 refugees from neighboring Iraq . There were also 102,000  Circassians , 18,000  Druze , 6300  Roma , 6300  Turkmen , 5400  Azerbaijanis , 5000  Chechens , 5600  Filipinos , 4700  Kurds , 1300  Greeks and smaller ethnic groups. In the meantime, numerous Syrian civil war refugees have arrived, most of whom are also Arabs.

Over 50 percent of the Arab population are descended from the approximately 800,000  immigrant Palestinians who fled to Jordan after the Palestinian War and the Six Day War and who were later granted citizenship. Most of these live in the greater Amman area: the two largest cities in Jordan, Amman and Zarqa, have Palestinian majorities of 90 to 99 percent. About 337,000 or 17 percent of the 1.9 million refugees registered in the country, to whom Jordan is the only Arab country to have granted citizenship, still live in ten refugee camps.

As a result of the Iraq conflict and the displacement of the Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991 , Jordan once again took in refugees from both countries. The ongoing civil war in Syria has also led to a flow of refugees to Jordan since 2011.

religion

Friday prayer in front of the Hussein Mosque in Amman. Since the mosque is overcrowded, the road will be blocked

93 percent of Jordanians profess Sunni Islam . Islam is the state religion in Jordan . Members of various Christian religious communities together make up a good five percent of the population. The Jordanian government pursues a demonstratively tolerant policy towards Christians and Jews in the country, permits the building of churches and synagogues and holds regular religious talks. Nevertheless, Islamism is a growing problem in Jordan too . Other religious communities account for two percent.

See also : Roman Catholic Church in Jordan , Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and Baptists in Jordan

Education and Social

→ Main article : Educational institutions in Jordan

School attendance is compulsory for 6 to 15 year olds; the illiteracy rate is 14 percent for women and 4 percent for men. Jordan thus has one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. English is compulsory as a foreign language from the first grade onwards; In practice, however, Jordanians can mostly only communicate in Arabic, especially outside the capital. There are eight state and twelve private universities in the country. The Jordanian medical education in particular enjoys a good reputation in the Arab world.

In Jordan, the mean school attendance of over 25s increased from 5.1 years in 1990 to 10.1 years in 2015.

In 1983 a still incomplete social security law came into force. Unemployment is 18.5 percent; inflation at 3.3 percent. The healthcare system is comparatively well developed in the cities, but is still inadequate in the countryside.

history

The Temple of Hercules built under Lucius Verus on the citadel hill in Amman

Hadrian's Arch in Gerasa

The early medieval desert castle of Qasr Kharana

→ Main article : History of Jordan

The West Bank , now disputed between Israel and the Palestinians, was once the core area of ​​biblical Israel with Bethlehem , Hebron and Jerusalem . But the East Bank also plays an important role in the Bible. The approximately 1200 BC According to biblical tradition, the Ammonites who came into the country later belonged to the great kingdom of Israel under King David and Solomon around 1000 to 926 BC. BC, but the historicity of this information is controversial. Since about the 4th century BC The Nabataeans from the Arabian Peninsula , whose capital was Petra, settled on both sides of the Jordan . Under Emperor Trajan, the Romans incorporated the area into their empire in 106 AD as the province of Arabia . Cities like Gerasa and Gadara now flourished, and impressive ruins are still evidence of this today. In late antiquity, today's West Jordan served the Roman Empire as a kind of guarded military border against the Bedouins . In addition, numerous churches were built. With the victory of the Muslims over the Eastern Roman Empire in the Battle of Jarmuk in 636, the area of ​​today's Jordan came under almost uninterrupted Islamic rule, with the exception of the years 1115 to 1187, when the western part was incorporated into the Kingdom of Jerusalem , one of the Crusader states . of which fortress ruins such as Montreal testify. From 1250 to 1516, the area belonged to the Mamluks Empire as part of the Syria Province , then to the Ottoman Empire until 1918 .

In the First World War to Jordanian Bedouin tribes involved 1916-1918 instrumental in the Arab revolt against the Ottomans and joined the in postwar Damascus under the Emir Faisal from the house of the Hashemites founded Kingdom Syria on; the Hashimites claim a blood relationship with the prophet Mohammed . Great Britain enforced the annexation of Jordan to the British Mandate Palestine at the Conference of San Remo in 1920 . In 1923, through the separation of the areas east of the Jordan, the emirate of Transjordan, which was under British sovereignty, was created with Abdallah ibn Husain as head of state. He was assisted by the British general John Bagot Glubb (Glubb Pascha), who in 1939 established the Arab Legion as the protective guard of the royal family. During the Second World War , Arab-Jordanian contingents in the Arab Legion fought alongside the British against the Wehrmacht . On May 25, 1946, today's national holiday, the British mandate expired and Transjordan gained full independence. Abdallah I accepted the title of king.

After the proclamation of the sovereign state of Israel , the Arab Legion occupied the eastern parts of Palestine and the old city of Jerusalem in the first Israeli-Arab war . The Jordanians viewed the armistice agreement of 1949 with Israel as a defeat, especially since it established a more unfavorable borderline for Jordan than was provided for in the UN partition plan of 1947 for economic unity and internationalization of Jerusalem . In 1950 the state was renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan . The official incorporation of the Palestinian territories was rejected by other Arab states. King Abdallah I was assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist in Jerusalem on July 20, 1951. After his son and successor Talal had to resign due to illness in 1952, his son Hussein became King of Jordan as Hussein I in 1953 , who in turn forced the reforming government of Sulaimān an-Nābulusī to resign in 1957 .

The Jordan-Saudi-Arabian Border Treaty of 1965: from Jordan to Saudi Arabia from Saudi Arabia to Jordan



Jordan within the borders from 1965 to 1967

A bilateral agreement signed on August 10, 1965 regulated the border with neighboring Saudi Arabia, which had been controversial until then. Jordan, which only had access to the sea via a narrow strip of land, was mainly concerned with additional coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba. Through the treaty, it gained about 12 kilometers of additional coastline to a total coastline of about 19 kilometers as well as 6000 square kilometers of territory and in return ceded about 7000 square kilometers of its territory to Saudi Arabia. Most of the exchanged areas were desert areas.

In the 1950s and 1960s there was a conflict over the Jordan water . In the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab states in 1967, Jordan lost all of its territory west of the Jordan to Israel. Another 400,000 people, mainly from the West Bank, came to the country after Jordan had to take in 400,000 refugees in 1949. The challenge posed by the Palestine Liberation Organization , which formed a kind of “state within a state” in the refugee camps and threatened the monarchy, led to open civil war in 1970/71 in which King Hussein forcibly defeated the military units of the Syrian-backed PLO in “Black September” smashed. Jordan largely stayed out of the 1973 Israeli-Arab Yom Kippur War . Only one Jordanian volunteer brigade was sent to Syria to fight against Israeli troops on Syrian territory. Following the first signals in 1974, King Hussein finally gave up all claims to the West Bank in 1988 in favor of the PLO. Jordan’s clear support for Iraq in the run-up to the Second Gulf War in 1991 led to tensions with Syria, the USA and the Arab Gulf states. Nevertheless, King Hussein managed to conclude the peace treaty with Israel in 1994 , with Jordan once again renouncing all areas west of the Jordan. Today Jordan is Israel's closest ally in the Arab world.

When Hussein died in 1999 after a long and serious illness, his son succeeded him as Abdullah II . In 2001 he concluded a free trade agreement with the United States , in 2002 an association agreement with the European Union and, overall, pursued a clearly pro-Western foreign policy.

On November 10, 2005, 56 people were killed in a terrorist attack on hotels in Amman. There were anti-Jordanian protests in Iraq because the Shiite side accused Jordan of sustained support for the Sunnis. Before the government reshuffle on April 7, 2005, the US had called for domestic policy reforms in the kingdom. During the Arab Spring of 2011 , protests and unrest also broke out in Jordan, but unlike in Syria, they did not lead to permanent destabilization of the country. The reforms carried out afterwards restricted the rights of the king only insignificantly. In the period that followed, Jordan took in numerous Syrian civil war refugees.

See also : Protests in Jordan 2011/2012

In the spring of 2016, Jordanian security forces took action in Irbid against an Islamic State- related terrorist group holed up in the city; seven Islamists were killed and 13 arrested in a firefight. On December 18, 2016, four Islamist terrorists killed seven Jordanian police officers and three civilians, including a tourist from Canada, in Qatraneh and the Kerak crusader castle . Special forces stormed the castle, killing all of the attackers.

politics

Political system

According to the constitution of 1952, Jordan is a constitutional monarchy of the Hashemite dynasty, which claims a descent from the prophet Mohammed . The king is head of state, commander in chief of the armed forces and appoints the prime minister and the council of ministers. The parliament consists of two chambers: the House of Representatives with 110 members elected by the people for four years, 9 of which are reserved for Christians , 3 for Circassians and 6 for women, and the Senate with 40 members who are appointed by the king for eight years . The king has extensive veto and proposal rights.

Women and men have the right to vote from the age of 18. It was not until 1974 that women received the right to vote and stand for election at the national level. At the local level, women were given the right to vote in 1982. The first election of a woman to the lower house of the national parliament, Toujan Faisal , took place on November 29, 1993. In 1989 there was already a woman in the Jordanian parliament, but she had been appointed.

In the elections to the House of Representatives on June 17, 2003, the Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood , the Islamic Action Front , won 10.3 percent of the vote. The elections brought 62 of the 110 seats to tribal leaders loyal to the king. In the 2010 elections, which were boycotted by the Muslim Brotherhood because of alleged discrimination through a reform of the electoral law, candidates loyal to the king from rural regions won a majority. At the same time, only 34 members of the old parliament were elected to the new one.

According to the constitution, Islam is the state religion, other religious communities can be recognized and are usually not hindered. In the legal system, which is based on the British model, there are not only civil courts but also Sharia courts , which can be invoked in private law disputes among Muslims and which apply Islamic law.

Political indices

Political indices issued by non-governmental organizations

Name of the index	Index value	Worldwide rank	Interpretation aid	year
Fragile States Index	75.4 out of 120	67 of 178	Stability of the country: increased warning 0 = very sustainable / 120 = very alarming	2020
Democracy index	3.62 out of 10	118 of 167	Authoritarian regime 0 = authoritarian regime / 10 = complete democracy	2020
Freedom in the World Index	37 of 100	-	Freedom status: partially free 0 = not free / 100 = free	2020
Freedom of the press ranking	42.89 out of 100	129 of 180	Difficult situation for freedom of the press 0 = good situation / 100 = very serious situation	2021
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)	49 out of 100	60 of 180	0 = very corrupt / 100 = very clean	2020

Foreign and Security Policy

Jordan is a member of the United Nations , the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League .

Jordan's foreign policy has been oriented towards the West for decades . The Kingdom is closely allied with the United States and is one of the United States' official category of Most Important Allies outside of NATO . Jordan also has an association agreement with the EU. The Jordanian foreign intelligence service in particular enjoys an excellent reputation. However, he came under fire when it became known in 2014 that, since 2001, terror suspects had been subjected to brutal interrogation methods in Jordan on behalf of the CIA , which would have been banned in the USA.

Relations with the US were only temporarily damaged when Jordan maintained its neutrality in the Second Gulf War of 1991 and even sympathized with Iraq . The peace treaty signed in 1994 between Jordan and its neighbor Israel is considered a milestone in the Middle East conflict and created the conditions for even closer political, economic and military cooperation with the West. Units of the German Bundeswehr have also been stationed in Jordan since 2017 .

Jordan is in conflict with the two predominant Palestinian organizations. The PLO was expelled from Jordan in Black September 1971 , while Hamas , backed by Syria and Iran, was banned in Jordan in 1999, but has been tolerated again since 2011. In retrospect, the government described the ban as a mistake.

Jordan cooperates with the European Union (EU) within the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). On May 1, 2002, the Association Agreement between the EU and Jordan came into force. In June 2005, Jordan agreed an action plan with the EU for reforms in the areas of politics, human rights, separation of powers, the economy and the judiciary.

In December 2011 the Council gave the European Commission the green light to start trade negotiations with Jordan. In 2016, the EU was Jordan's largest trading partner.

See also : Armed Forces of Jordan

Human rights, death penalty

In 2006, the UN special rapporteur on torture documented the use of torture by the Jordanian intelligence service GID , the police and the judiciary. Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch also repeatedly report serious violations of human rights in Jordan. The death penalty exists in Jordan by law and is both imposed and carried out.

administration

Administrative structure

The individual governorates of Jordan

Jordan is divided into twelve governorates (Arabic محافظة / muḥāfaẓa ). These are:

• Adschlun
• Aqaba
• Amman
• al-Balqa
• Jarash
• Irbid
• al-Karak
• Maʿan
• Madaba
• al-Mafraq
• at-Tafila
• Zarqa

The lower levels of local government are the district (Arabic لواء / Liwāʾ ) and the sub-district (Arabicقضاء / Qaḍāʾ ).

See also : List of Governments of Jordan

Cities

The largest cities in 2005 were: Amman with 1.22 million inhabitants, Zarqa with 890,000 inhabitants, Irbid with 751,000 inhabitants, Ar-Rusaifa with 262,000 inhabitants, Wadi as-Sir with 194,000 inhabitants, Akaba with 102,000 inhabitants, Madaba with 82,000 inhabitants and Al -Baqa with 80,000 inhabitants. Since 2013, the Zaatari refugee camp has been the fifth largest “city” in the country. Amman, on the other hand, has grown rapidly in recent years and had an estimated 4 million inhabitants in 2017.

See also : List of cities in Jordan

State budget

The state budget included expenditures in 2017 of the equivalent of 11.51 billion US dollars , which were income equivalent to 9.462 billion US dollar against. This results in a budget deficit of 5.1 percent of the gross domestic product. The national debt in 2016 was $ 36.18 billion, or 93.4 percent of GDP.

In 2006, the share of government spending as a percentage of GDP was in the following areas:

• Health : 7.5 percent (2014)
• Education : 3.6 percent (2017)
• Military : 4.8 percent (2017)

economy

Generally

The Jordanian economy, which has been in a serious crisis for years, with a chronically deficit trade balance, rising unemployment and an advancing wave of bankruptcies, is particularly suffering from the political crises in the region. In the mid-1990s, about 80 percent of the Jordanian economy was in the hands of Palestinians. The trade sector was badly hit by the UN sanctions on Iraq, as Iraq made up 40 percent of Jordan's total trade overview before the Gulf War. In 1997, Jordan and the European Union signed a partnership agreement that paved the way for a free trade area by 2010. This agreement, which came into force in early 1999, is also intended to accelerate the negotiations for Jordan's accession to the World Trade Organization . In 1996, Jordan and Egypt signed a partnership agreement that regulated bilateral economic cooperation agreements and intended to liberalize trade by establishing a free trade area. Numerous business protocols and agreements have been made with Lebanon , Syria, Iraq, Yemen , Saudi Arabia, Bahrain , Tunisia , Egypt, Morocco , Libya and Sudan .

In the Global Competitiveness Index , which measures a country's competitiveness, Jordan was ranked 63rd out of 138 countries (as of 2016-17). In 2017, the country was ranked 53rd out of 180 countries in the Index for Economic Freedom .

Key figures

All GDP values ​​are given in US dollars ( purchasing power parity ). The gross domestic product (GDP) for 2017 is estimated at 40.5 billion US dollars. In purchasing power parity, GDP is $ 89 billion or $ 12,500 per inhabitant. In terms of GDP per capita, this puts the country in the global midfield. Real growth was 2.3%.

year	1980	1985	1990	1995	2000	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
GDP (purchasing power parity)	8.25 billion	13.24 billion	15.06 billion	22.99 billion	29.26 billion	44.77 billion	49.88 billion	55.40 billion	60.57 billion	64.37 billion	66.66 billion	69.80 billion	72.97 billion	76.24 billion	80.01 billion	82.81 billion	85.55 billion	89.10 billion
GDP per capita (purchasing power parity)	3,693	4,903	4,341	5,391	6,025	8,180	8,907	9,679	10,353	10,634	10,905	11,169	11,422	11,676	11,986	12,135	12,264	12,494
GDP growth (real)	11.2%	−2.7%	−0.3%	6.2%	4.3%	8.1%	8.1%	8.2%	7.2%	5.5%	2.3%	2.6%	2.7%	2.8%	3.1%	2.4%	2.0%	2.3%
Inflation (in percent)	10.9%	2.8%	16.2%	2.4%	0.7%	3.5%	6.3%	4.7%	14.0%	−0.7%	4.8%	4.2%	4.5%	4.8%	2.9%	−0.9%	−0.8%	3.3%
Public debt (as a percentage of GDP)	...	...	220%	115%	100%	84%	76%	74%	60%	65%	67%	71%	81%	87%	89%	93%	95%	96%

Economic sectors

overview

Just under 5 percent of the area of ​​Jordan is agriculturally usable, especially in the province of Irbid. The cultivation of grain, fruit and vegetables is heavily dependent on irrigation. The agriculture makes 2 percent of gross domestic product from 3.9 percent in it the workers are employed. The vast majority of food therefore has to be imported. The most important branch of the economy is phosphate mining with subsequent processing into fertilizers. There are two large fertilizer factories in the country, one Jordanian-Indian and one Jordanian-Japanese. Also, copper ores , oil shale and potassium salts are encouraged. In addition to an oil refinery that processes crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia, there is a cement and chemical industry . The Jordanian economy is predominantly characterized by small and medium - sized businesses . Industry accounts for 26 percent of GDP, with 21.5 percent of employees working.

Jordan mainly imports food, machinery, transport equipment and oil, 11 percent from Saudi Arabia, 8 percent Germany , 8 percent People's Republic of China , 7 percent USA, 7 percent Iraq, 4 percent Italy and 4 percent from Japan. It mainly exports textiles, chemical products and raw materials such as phosphate and potash , 22 percent to the USA, 18 percent Iraq, 7 percent India, 7 percent Switzerland and 5 percent Saudi Arabia.

In 2007, electricity generation consisted of 66 percent crude oil, 28 percent natural gas and 1 percent renewable energies. 5 percent of the electricity demand is covered by imports. Since there are no significant oil deposits, this also has to be imported.

Nuclear economy

Jordan has around 3 percent of the world's uranium reserves , which are to be mined in the course of the nuclear start- up. The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) and Jordan Energy Resources Inc. merged with Areva to form Nabatean Energy and the Jordan French Uranium Mining Company (JFUMC), respectively. Mining in the central region near Swaqa, Chan Azzabib, Wadi Maghar and Attarat is scheduled to begin in 2013. Areva secured the exclusive uranium mining rights for the next 25 years. JAEC signed a contract with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and Daewoo in December 2009 to build a 5 megawatt research reactor at the Jordan University of Research and Technology by 2015. The country's first nuclear power plant has been in the tender since 2009: The Atmea-1 from Areva-MHI, the Enhanced Candu-6 from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the AES-92 from Atomstroiexport are in the running . The decision on a model should be made in 2012. Four more nuclear power plants are in the planning phase to increase the share of nuclear power to 30 percent.

After the Russian Rosatom subsidiary Atomstroiexport won the tender in 2013, Jordan signed a contract with Rosatom on March 25, 2015. Two units of the type WWER-1000 / V-392 are to be built at the Qasr Amra location, and their commissioning is planned for 2024/2025.

tourism

Petra

Kerak Crusader Fortress

Tourism accounts for around a tenth of GDP (72 percent of services in total, 74.7 percent of whom are gainfully employed) and is the second most important source of foreign currency. Although there has been peace in Jordan itself for over 30 years, the tourist flows are very sensitive to the political developments in the Middle East . The "peace dividend" from tourism that the Jordanian government had hoped for after the peace agreement with Israel has so far largely failed to materialize.

The country has many sights, some of which are unique, but only a few generally known tourist attractions:

• Ancient sites and archaeological digs, especially
  • the rock city of Petra ,
  • the ancient Gerasa (Jerash)
  • the Amman Citadel
  • the mosaics of Madaba
  • the ruins of Umm er-Rasas
  • the desert castles
• Landscapes and natural monuments
  • the desert landscape of Wadi Rum
  • the Dead Sea, the shore of which marks the lowest point on the mainland
  • the diving paradise at Akaba on the Red Sea

Infrastructure

rail

Phosphate train on the Aqaba Railway

There is a railway network of 618 kilometers, which is used exclusively for goods transport and tourist traffic, since the war in Syria it has been a purely inland network with island operations . It consists of a section of the former Hejaz Railway and the Aqaba Railway branching off from it , both in narrow gauge of 1050 mm.

According to a statement by the Jordanian Minister of Transport, Khalid Saif, Jordan is planning to fundamentally modernize its railways: In four steps, the country is to get a standard-gauge railway network that is to connect to neighboring countries. The starting point for all considerations is the Maddouneh container terminal in Amman. The four steps are:

1. A railway line from Aqaba to Maddouneh in Amman, exclusively for freight traffic . This are feasibility studies before the actual planning and preparation of the tender for the construction to be completed in the second half of 2020, the site of the route stand largely already available.
2. The second connection should lead from Maddouneh via Saudi Arabia to Oman,
3. the third from Maddouneh to Iraq and
4. the fourth from Maddouneh to Syria and also enable traffic to Europe.

road

The road network has a length of 5200 kilometers.

shipping

The only seaport in the country is the port of Aqaba .

air traffic

There are three airports in Jordan, two of which are served by international traffic.

The smaller of the two international airports is Aqaba King Hussein International Airport (AQJ), which mainly offers connections to the capital Amman, but also offers flight connections to Europe and Egypt. This airport is located in the immediate vicinity of Eilat Ramon Airport (ETM) in Israel and Taba International Airport (TCP) in Egypt .

The largest airport in the country is Queen Alia International Airport . In 2014 the airport counted more than seven million passengers.

Jordan's national airline is Royal Jordanian , which operates from Queen Alia International Airport.

telecommunications

In 2008, 42 percent of Jordanian households had a landline connection and 94 percent had at least one mobile phone. In 2017, 67 percent of Jordan's residents used the internet .

Culture

The national holiday is May 25th, the anniversary of independence and the acceptance of the title of king by Abdullah I in 1946.

Also known is the Jerash Festival every summer, where musicians from many Arab countries perform.

literature

• Naseer H. Aruri: Jordan. A Study in Political Development (1923-1965) . Springer, The Hague 1972, ISBN 978-90-247-1217-5 .
• Peter Hünseler : Jordan's position in the Middle East conflict (= working papers on international politics. 29). Europa-Union-Verlag, Bonn 1984, ISBN 3-7713-0212-9 .
• Olaf Köndgen: Jordan. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-39865-0 .
• Olaf Köndgen, Markus Bouillon: Jordan's Peace Dividend 1994–1998: An inventory. KAS international information 09/1998.
• Jarir Maani: Field Guide to Jordan. 2008, ISBN 978-9957-8623-0-5 .
• Frank Rainer Scheck : Jordan. Peoples and cultures between the Jordan and the Red Sea. 6th edition. DuMont-Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-3979-8 .
• Mary C. Wilson: King Abdullah, Britain, and the making of Jordan. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, New York, ISBN 978-0-521-39987-6 .

Web links

Commons : Jordan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: Jordan  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wikisource: Jordan  - Sources and full texts

Wikivoyage: Jordan  Travel Guide

• Database of indexed literature on the social, political and economic situation in Jordan
• Country information from the Federal Foreign Office on Jordan
• Information on geography, climate and flora and fauna
• German-Jordanian Society (DJG)
• Country information portal Jordan from Inwent
• Statistical Yearbook of Jordan 2017 (English and Arabic)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ population, total. In: World Economic Outlook Database. World Bank , 2020, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
2. ↑ Population growth (annual%). In: World Economic Outlook Database. World Bank , 2020, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
3. ^ World Economic Outlook Database October 2020. In: World Economic Outlook Database. International Monetary Fund , 2020, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
4. ↑ Table: Human Development Index and its components . In: United Nations Development Program (ed.): Human Development Report 2020 . United Nations Development Program, New York 2020, ISBN 978-92-1126442-5 , pp. 344 (English, undp.org [PDF]).
5. ↑ The estimate is strongly dependent on the further development of the population and the development of the number of refugees
6. ↑ Thomas Gebhard: Jordan - water poverty in an unstable region. (PDF file) Hanns Seidel Foundation 2015. p. 12.
7. ↑ Drained - Dead Sea conflict spot. Documentation by Arte , 2013 (available online on Youtube ).
8. ↑ Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ: Jordan's escalating water crisis as a warning to the world: Only a comprehensive reform can remedy the situation. March 31, 2021 (accessed April 4, 2021)
9. ^ Zuhair Sami Amr, Mohammad Adnan Abu Baker, Mazin Botros Qumsiyeh: Bat Diversity and Conservation in Jordan. (PDF file; 66 kB) Turk J Zool 30 (2006), pp. 235–244.
10. ^ World Population Prospects - Population Division. United Nations , accessed July 17, 2017 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Jordan. In: The World Factbook . Archived from the original on April 24, 2019 ; Retrieved on May 3, 2019 (English, estimate by the CIA . The figures on the original page are continuously updated. The information in the article is based on the archived version.). 
12. ↑ Migration Report 2017. UN, accessed on September 30, 2018 (English). 
13. ↑ ^{a b} World Population Prospects - Population Division - United Nations. Retrieved October 20, 2017 . 
14. ↑ population, total. In: World Economic Outlook Database. World Bank , 2020, accessed May 15, 2021 . 
15. ↑ Ulle Rannut: Maintenance of the Circassian Language in Jordan. Self-identification, attitudes, policies and practices as indicators of linguistic vitality. PhD, Amman 2011, p. 7.
16. ^ Philippe Lemarchand, Lamia Radi: Israel and Palestine Tomorrow - A Geopolitical Outline. S. 16. Westermann, Braunschweig 1997.
17. ↑ ^{a b} Federal Foreign Office : Country Info Jordan.
18. ↑ BBC news: Jordan country profile.
19. ^ Philippe Lemarchand, Lamia Radi: Israel and Palestine Tomorrow - A Geopolitical Outline. P. 62f. Westermann, Braunschweig 1997.
20. ↑ UNRWA : Website to the refugee camps (Engl.)
21. ↑ Otmar Oehring: On the current situation of Christians in the Middle East. KAS international information, 4/2010 (PDF file)
22. ↑ Human Development Data (1990-2015) | Human Development Reports. Accessed August 2, 2018 . 
23. ^ The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed August 6, 2018 . 
24. ↑ ESuq: History of Jordan.
25. ↑ International Boundary Study No. 60, Jordan - Saudi Arabia Boundary. (PDF file) College of Law, Florida State University, December 30, 1965, accessed November 15, 2015 . 
26. ↑ Death toll in Karak attacks rises to 14, including four terrorists. Jordan Times, December 19, 2016, accessed December 19, 2016 . 
27. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 438
28. ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 206.
29. ↑ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz, Christof Hartmann (eds.): Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. (= Elections in Asia and the Pacific. A Data Handbook. Volume 1). Oxford University Press, New York 2001, ISBN 978-0-19-924958-9 , p. 144
30. ↑ ^{a b c} - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. Retrieved October 3, 2018 . 
31. ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 207.
32. ↑ United Nations Development Program: Human Development Report 2007/2008 . New York, 2007, ISBN 978-0-230-54704-9 , p. 344
33. ↑ Constitution of Jordan from 1952 (offline)
34. ^ Fragile States Index: Global Data. Fund for Peace , 2020, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
35. ^ The Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. The Economist Intelligence Unit, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
36. ^ Countries and Territories. Freedom House , 2020, accessed February 22, 2021 . 
37. ↑ 2021 World Press Freedom Index. Reporters Without Borders , 2021, accessed May 15, 2021 . 
38. ^ Transparency International (Ed.): Corruption Perceptions Index . Transparency International, Berlin 2021, ISBN 978-3-96076-157-0 (English, transparencycdn.org [PDF]).
39. ↑ ^{a b} European Commission - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Jordan and the EU: new opportunities for trade and economy. Accessed January 16, 2018 . 
40. ^ Jordan - European Neighborhood Policy And Enlargement Negotiations - European Commission. Accessed January 16, 2018 . 
41. ^ EU-Mediterranean trade agreement - Morocco. Retrieved January 16, 2018 (German). 
42. ↑ Human Rights Watch: Jordan: Prison Torture Everyday and Widespread.
43. ^ University of Vienna: Atlas of Torture: Jordan. ( Memento from June 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
44. ↑ Manfred Nowak : Jordan: The secret service as a haven of torture. In: Torture - the everydayness of the incomprehensible. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-218-00833-4 , pp. 107-112.
45. ↑ Herbert Lackner: In the antechambers of hell. Profile , February 29, 2012, accessed July 24, 2017.
46. ↑ Death penalty in Jordan. Retrieved December 2, 2019 . 
47. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Jordan carries out 15 death sentences | DW | 04.03.2017. Accessed December 2, 2019 (German). 
48. ↑ Federal Foreign Office: Jordan: Travel and Safety Instructions. Retrieved December 2, 2019 . 
49. ^ Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. International Monetary Fund, accessed July 17, 2017 . 
50. ^ Philippe Lemarchand, Lamia Radi: Israel and Palestine Tomorrow - A Geopolitical Outline. Westermann, Braunschweig 1997. p. 66.
51. ↑ [1]
52. ↑ [2]
53. ^ Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. Retrieved September 3, 2018 (American English). 
54. ↑ The Tafila wind farm, built in 2015, is the first wind farm in the country.
55. ^ Jordan Atomic Energy Commission: Jordan: Why nuclear? (PDF file; 3.1 MB; English)
56. ^ World Nuclear Association : Emerging Nuclear Energy Countries: Jordan.
57. ↑ AtomkraftwerkePlag: Qasr Amra (Jordan) accessed on April 3, 2018
58. ^ New Rail Development Strategy Announced . In: HaRakevet 128, p. 15.
59. ^ New Rail Development Strategy Announced . In: HaRakevet 128, p. 15.
60. ^ New Rail Development Strategy Announced . In: HaRakevet 128, pp. 15f (16).
61. ↑ Flightradar24: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map. Accessed December 12, 2019 . 
62. ^ Individuals using the Internet (% of population). World Bank , accessed May 15, 2021 . 

Coordinates: 31 °  N , 37 °  E