Introduction & History of Amman

Amman is the capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, though its history extends long before the establishment of the modern Jordanian state. The city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and its myriad archaeological sites serve as evidence of this fact. The Ammonites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Nabataeans, Ghassanids, Circassians, Ottomans and Arabs have all left their marks on the city.

The area currently named Amman is mentioned in the Bible several times as the settlement of Rabbath Ammon, the capital of the Ammonites. The kingdom of Ammon ruled from 1100 BCE until 582, when it fell to the Assyrians. The area was later dominated by the Nabataeans, and was known in Greco-Roman times by the name Philadelphia in honor of Ptolemy II and his wife Arsinoe.

Under the Romans, Amman--or Philadelphia, as it was called--was a Decapolis city, or one of ten flourishing cities on the southeastern side of the Roman Empire. It later developed into a key center for the caravan trade in Arabia. During the era of the Islamic conquests, Amman was brought under the umbrella of the Islamic empire. It was ruled by the Abbasid Empire, the Mongols, the Crusaders, the Ayyubids, and the Mamluks until the Ottoman Empire took power in 1516.

In 1921, after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, King Abdullah I chose Amman as the seat of power for the new state of Transjordan, part of the British mandate system. Jordan gained its independence in 1946, following the United Nations approval of the end to the British Mandate. King Abdullah was declared Jordan's first king. The population of Amman skyrocketed in the 20th century, mainly due to the influx of Palestinian refugees after the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967.