Jordan is a small country of 92,300 square kilometres (57,345 sq. miles) that can be crossed by car in approximately four hours. However, its diverse terrain and landscape impart a feeling of its being larger than it is.
Physically, Jordan is 90 percent steppe and desert, and its bisected by the northern reaches of the great Rift Valley as it runs from Biga'a, a Valley through the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, down to the Gulf of Aqaba and on into East Africa. To the east of the Rift Valley lies a ridge of Mountains formed by rock strata pushed upwards and folding over as the crack of the valley opened and sank. East of the mountain range is a wide high plateau, which places Amman as the second highest capital in the Arab World, after Sana' in Yemen.
Besides the mountains, the valley and the desert, Jordan has a number of mineral springs and area of forest, especially in the northern hills.
Jordan is a beautiful country, it is wild with limitless deserts where the Bedouin roam, but the mountains of the north are clothed in green forests, and where the Jordan Riber flows, it is fertile in summer and winter. It has a strange haunting
beauty and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the land of tomorrow.
Jordan's population was estimated at 4.2 million in 1995. Jordan's high fertility rate of 6.6 and declining mortality rate have caused a considerable increase in the population, which averages 3.6% annually. Jordan's stability in a turbulent region has attracted large numbers of refugee residents from neighboring regions. In recent years it has also seen tens of thousand of Jordanian expatriates returning from abroad.
Jordan strong rural-based lifestyle, grounded in the nation's villages and deserts, has taken a slight shift in recent years. The trend has been to urbanize. About sixty four percent of Jordanian's cultural identity is firmly rooted in rural and desert communities. Amman's population was estimated at 1,580,000 in 1995.
