Jordan Tourism

Amman has served as the modern and ancient capital of Jordan. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a 1994 excavation uncovering homes and towers believed to have been built during the Stone Age, circa 7000 BCE. There are many Biblical references to the city, which by about 1200 BCE had become the Ammonite capital of Rabbath-Ammon. The Ammonites fought numerous wars with Saul, David and others.

The history of Amman between the end of its Biblical references (around 585 BCE) and the time of the Ptolemies is unclear. We do know that the city was renamed Philadelphia after the Ptolemaic ruler Philadelphus in the third century BCE. After coming under Seleucid and Nabatean rule, Philadelphia was taken by the Roman vassal King Herod in 30 BCE. The city became part of the Decapolis League, a loose alliance of ten Roman-ruled cities including Jerash, Gadara (present-day Umm Qais), Pella, Arbila (Irbid) and others. Under Roman rule, Philadelphia was replanned and reconstructed in typically grand Roman style with a colonnaded street, baths, an amphitheater and impressive public buildings.

During the Byzantine period, Philadelphia was the seat of a Christian bishop, and several expansive churches were built. The city declined somewhat during the late Byzantine years, and was overrun by the Persian Sassanians in 614 CE. Their rule was short-lived, however, collapsing before the Arabian armies of Islam around the year 635. The name of the city then returned to its Semitic origin of Ammon, or "Amman." It remained an important stop on the caravan routes for many years, but eventually trade patterns shifted and dried up the lifeblood of Amman. The city declined to little more than a provincial village for many centuries.

Amman's "modern" history began in the late 19th century, when the Ottomans resettled a colony of Circassian emigrants there in 1878. Many of their descendants still reside in Amman. During that time and the early decades of the 20th century, the neighboring city of Salt was more important as a regional administrative and political center. However, after the Great Arab Revolt secured the state of TransJordan, Emir Abdullah bin al-Hussein made Amman his capital in 1921.

An aerial view of Amman. © Zohrab Since then, the city has grown by leaps and bounds into a modern, thriving metropolis of well over a million people. Amman's growth has been driven largely by political events in the region, and especially by the Arab-Israeli conflict. After the wars of 1948 and 1967, successive waves of Palestinian refugees ended up in Amman. Moreover, the city's population was further expanded by another wave of immigrants arriving from Iraq and Kuwait during the 1990-91 Gulf Crisis.

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Jordan Tourism