Page 104 - Key to Social Studies 5

The Geography and History of Jordan

• Jordan, with Amman as its capital, is almost a landlocked country and covered greatly by the Arabian

Desert. It is located geographically in Southwest Asia, south of Syria, west of Iraq, northwest of Saudi

Arabia, and east of the Dead Sea and the West Bank.

• People started to settle in Jordan during the Paleolithic period (50,000–17,000 B.C.E.). During the Bronze

Age (3,200–1,950 B.C.E.), settlers started to build permanent villages and forts to defend their lands.

Many kingdoms thrived across Jordan during the rst and second centuries, including Petra, Ammon,

Edom, and the Nabataean, who developed the language between Aramaic and Classical Arabic, which

has now turned into Modern Arabic.

Early Jordanian Kingdoms

• Jordan became part of the Islamic Empire at the end of the seventh century and was ruled by the

Abbasids. Many other invaders, like the Mongols, Crusaders, Ayyubids, and Mamluks, controlled Jordan

after the end of the Abbasid rule. The area was controlled by the Ottoman Empire in 1516, and their rule

continued to the end of World War I, when the British began to control the area.

The Ottoman Empire map

102