Palestinians in Jordan refers mainly to those with
Palestinian refugee
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...
status currently residing there. Sometimes the definition includes Jordanian citizens with full
Palestinian origin. Most Palestinian ancestors came to
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...
as Palestinian refugees between 1947 and 1967. Today, most Palestinians and their descendants in Jordan are naturalized, making Jordan the only Arab country to fully integrate the Palestinian refugees of 1948, as the
West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
was
annexed
Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held to ...
and held by Jordan between 1948 and 1967.
Population
In Jordan, there is no official census data for how many inhabitants are Palestinians and it rather depends on the definition of who is a Palestinian. Some 2.18 million Palestinians were registered as refugees in 2016.
As of 2014, around 370,000 live in
ten refugee camps, with the biggest one being
Baqa'a refugee camp with over 104,000 residents, followed by
Al-Wehdat refugee camp with over 51,500 residents.
estimated that there are around 3 million Palestinians in Jordan.
Palestinians are overwhelmingly concentrated in northern and central Jordan, specifically in the
Amman Governorate
Amman Governorate, officially known as Muhafazat al-Asima (, English language, English translation: the Capital Governorate), is one of the governorates in Jordan. The governorate's capital is the city of Amman, which is also the country's capi ...
,
Zarqa Governorate
Zarqa Governorate ( ''Muħāfazat az-Zarqāʔ'', local dialects ''ez-Zergā'' or ''ez-Zer'a'') is the third largest governorate in Jordan by population. The capital of Zarqa governorate is Zarqa City, which is the largest city in the governorate. ...
and
Irbid Governorate
Irbid or Irbed () is a governorate in Jordan, located north of Amman, the country's capital. The capital of the governorate is the city of Irbid. The governorate has the second largest population in Jordan after Amman Governorate, and the highest ...
.
Notable people
This is a list of notable Palestinians in Jordan and people of Palestinian ancestry:
*
Anwar Nusseibeh, politician
*
Ahmad Toukan, politician
*
Amer Shafi, footballer
*
Emad Hajjaj, cartoonist
*
Hassan Abdel-Fattah, footballer
*
Ibrahim Nasrallah, poet and novelist
*
Princess Firyal of Jordan, princess
*
Samir al-Rifai, politician
*
Queen Alia of Jordan, third wife of
King Hussein
Hussein bin Talal (14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hussein was traditionally considered a 40th-generati ...
*
Queen Rania of Jordan, wife of
King Abdullah II
Abdullah II (Abdullah bin Hussein; born 30 January 1962) is King of Jordan, having ascended the throne on 7 February 1999. He is a member of the Hashemites, who have been the reigning royal family of Jordan since 1921, and is traditionally reg ...
*
Hanan Al-Agha, plastic artist
*
Eyad Nassar, actor
*
Musa Al-Taamari, football player
*
Zeyne, singer
See also
*
Refugees of the Syrian civil war in Jordan
*
Demographics of Jordan
Jordan has a population of more than 11.1 million inhabitants as of 2023. Jordanians () are the citizens of Jordan. Around 94% of Jordanians are Arabs, while the remaining 6% belong to ethnic minorities, including Circassians in Jordan, Circass ...
*
1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight
In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled. Expulsions and attacks against Palestinians were carried out by the ...
*
1967 Palestinian exodus
The Naksa (Arabic: النكسة, "the setback") was the displacement of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, when the territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. A number of Palestini ...
*
Jordanian annexation of the West Bank
The Jordanian administration of the West Bank officially began on 24 April 1950, and ended with the decision to sever ties on 31 July 1988. The period started during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when Jordan occupied and subsequently annexed the ...
*
King Hussein's federation plan
*
Three-state solution
*
Black September
Black September (), also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by Hussein of Jordan, King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fight ...
Bibliography
*
* Full text a
* Sayigh Yusuf, 1984, Al-Urdunn wa-l-Filastiniyyun, Dirasah fi Wihdat al-Masir aw al-Sira’ al-Hatmi (Arabic), London, Riyad El-Rayyis Books
References
External links
Progress, challenges, diversity - Insights into the socio-economic conditions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan 2013
Fafo Foundation report
{{Demographics of Jordan
Ethnic groups in Jordan
West Asian diaspora in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...