Located on desert plateaus in southwest Asia, Jordan is almost landlocked but for a short coast on the Gulf of Aqaba. In 1923, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Transjordan was designated a British mandate. Independence came in 1946. Following the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948-49, the country annexed the West Bank—but lost it to Israel in the 1967 war. The Arab-Israeli wars have brought this small, poor country some 1.5 million Palestinian refugees. Jordan has a constitutional monarchy, with an economy based on agriculture and phosphates.
ECONOMYIndustry: phosphate mining, pharmaceuticals, petroleum refining, cement, potash.
Agriculture: wheat, barley, citrus, tomatoes; sheep.
Exports: phosphates, fertilizers, potash, agricultural products, manufactures.
Text source:
National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition, 2004
