Might want to call this a possible fact until it is fact checked. Reportedly there are a fair number of drownings by people floating on their stomachs and who can’t roll onto their backs. Dead Sea float – a cool thing to do but you don’t want to stay in the water for more than 15 minutes That is why everyone floats way high in the water. The Dead Sea has a salinity of about 33% as compared to the ocean being about 3.5% saline. The Dead Sea is actually a lake, located at the bottom (where else) of a rift valley system where the earth’s crust has pulled apart. This line is getting shorter and lower as the Dead Sea level lowers over time. Jordan shares the lowest point (well actually it’s a line being the shore of the Dead Sea) on planet earth being about 427 metres BELOW sea level, with the West Bank and Israel. The Jordanian currency, the Dinar, is worth about $2.00 Canadian ($1.50 US) in 2019 at the time of this typing. Snuck two facts about the country Jordan in here.ĭiners use dinars for dinner. The country is 93% Sunni Muslim, 6% Christian and 1% other. Now isn’t that an impressive display of neighbourliness and hospitality! Jordan is a super accepting country and has made citizens of a huge number of these displaced people. taxi drivers) estimate as much as 60% of the population is of Palestinian origin (most having been displaced between 19) and that combined with over a million Iraqi and Syrian refugees means “original” Jordanians number about 30%. Its hard to know for sure, but some experts (eg. The housing density is astounding – and one of the amazing facts about the country Jordan. Most live in the north and roughly 40% of them live in Amman. Jordanians drive on the right-hand side of the road which is the right side as far as we are concerned.Ībout 10 million people live in Jordan. We don’t recommend visiting right now.īy air, Amman is 72 km (45 miles) from Jerusalem but by car it is 252 km (157 miles). There is a precedent after all.Īmman is 200 km (124 miles) from Damascus, the capital of Syria. This counts as a fact.Īmman used to be known as Philadelphia but to the best of our knowledge the Philadelphia in the United Sates has never been known as Amman, although it might be one day. Pretty sure that name and the borders are NOT locally derived. Jordan became an independent state in 1946 and is part of what was formerly know as Trans Jordan. What a neighbourhood! Saudi – Iraq road sign Jordan has six neighbours: Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt (we count the water border), West Bank and Israel. That also means Texas is bigger than Alberta which Texans would be pleased to know. If you lived in Texas you could have eight Jordans. Jordan would tuck nicely in southern Alberta where we live and in fact, you could do that seven times over. That’s just a three hour drive on a highway! The country is tiny! It’s about 89,000 square km (34.5 thousand square miles) which if it were a square would be less than 300 kilometres (186 miles) on a side. Strangely enough, there is a river descending or flowing down called the “Jordan River” flowing from north to south serving as the border between Israel and Jordan and ending up in the Dead Sea. The word Jordan is thought to be derived from the Hebrew word “Yarden” which translates into something like “descend” or “to flow down” something a river might do. Wonder if they will change it to Queendom if there is a queen? His name is Abdullah II and is a member of the …… yes, the Hashemite family. Jordan is formally known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.Ī Kingdom ought to have a king and it does. Loved being there so here are some mostly non-political, non-religious and mostly interesting facts about the country Jordan that hopefully will inspire you to go. We looked into the West Bank and Israel to the east.
Don’t really want to know what they were up to. We couldn’t help but see a road sign that pointed left to Iraq and right to Saudi Arabia! We saw fighter jets returning to base. We were in Jerash only 35 km from Syria with all its tragedy. Citadel in Amman Jordan – and the site of a small museum There was a palpable feeling of excitement and tension just being in this part of the world.Įnjoy these 50 strange, fun facts about the country Jordan – all discovered or experienced by my husband, John McAdam – the author of this guest post.
It was a real treat having been reasonably acute observers of international news and a lover of maps, basically all of our lives. We recently had the privilege of visiting Jordan.
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