JO · Curated travel guide
Wadi Rum, Qusayr 'Amra, Mount Nebo and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about Jordan and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. 2 are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
World Heritage
Valley in southern Jordan
Known in Arabic as Wādī Ramm or Wādī al-Ramm (وادي رم), and also as the Valley of the Moon or the Red mountains, a valley carved into granite and sandstone in the south of Jordan, close to the Saudi Arabian border, some 60 km east of Aqaba. Covering 720 km², it is Jordan's largest wadi.
Photo: Raya Sharbain, CC BY-SA 4.0
World Heritage
Historic site in Jordan
Also called Quseir Amra, and sometimes Qasr Amra, the best known of the desert castles of what is now eastern Jordan. It was built at some point between 723 and 743 by Walid Ibn Yazid, later the Umayyad caliph Walid II, whose power over the region was then growing.
Photo: Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0
Abrahamic holy site in Jordan
A raised ridge in Jordan, about 700 metres (2,300 ft) above sea level, in the Abarim range. The Bible names it as the place where Moses was shown the Promised Land before he died.
Photo: Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0
Moabite stele commemorating Mesha's victory over Israel (c. 840 BCE)
Also called the Moabite Stone, a stele from around 840 BCE bearing an important Canaanite inscription in the name of Mesha, King of Moab. Mesha tells how Chemosh, Moab's god, was angry with his people and let the Kingdom of Israel subjugate them, until at last Chemosh came back and helped Mesha throw off Israel's yoke and restore Moab's lands.
Photo: Mbzt, CC BY-SA 4.0
Rift valley in Israel, Palestine and Jordan
Part of the wider Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most river valleys, the name often covers only the Jordan River's lower course, from where it leaves the Sea of Galilee in the north to where it ends in the Dead Sea in the south.
Photo: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, Public domain
River in Jordan, near the Dead Sea
A Jordanian river that ends in the Dead Sea, roughly 420 metres (1,380 ft) under sea level.
Photo: YousefTOmar, CC BY-SA 3.0
Ancient temple in Petra, Jordan
Also called Khaznat el-Far'oun, one of the most elaborate tombs cut into the rock at Petra, a city of the Nabatean Kingdom where Arabs lived in ancient times. Like most of the town's other buildings, the Monastery among them, it was carved out of a sandstone cliff face.
Photo: Al_Khazneh_Petra.jpg : Graham Racher from London, UK derivative work: MrPanyGoff, CC BY-SA 2.0
Mosque in Amman, Jordan
A mosque in Amman, Jordan, named in honour of Abdullah I and built from 1982 to 1989. Beneath its blue mosaic dome, 3,000 Muslims can pray.
Photo: Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0
12th-century Crusader castle in Shoubak, Jordan
In Arabic Qal'at ash-Shawbak, a castle built by the Crusaders and enlarged by the Mamluks, set among the mountains of Edom just east of the Arabah Valley, clinging to the side of a rocky, cone-shaped mountain above fruit orchards. Its ruins stand beside the modern town of Shoubak, Jordan.
Photo: H.P. Frei, Copyrighted free use
Area south of the Dead Sea basin in Israel and Jordan
Also written Araba, Aravah or Arava, a loosely defined area north of the Gulf of Aqaba and south of the Dead Sea drainage basin, in southwestern Jordan and southeastern Israel.
Photo: Anastasia Pozdnyakova, CC BY-SA 4.0
Officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a West Asian country in the Southern Levant. Syria lies to its north, Iraq to its east, Saudi Arabia to its south, and Palestine and Israel to its west. Along its western border, in the Jordan Rift Valley, runs the Jordan River, which flows into the Dead Sea.
Officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Known locally as Al-'Urdun الأردن.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Wadi Rum, Qusayr 'Amra, Mount Nebo and Mesha Stele and others. Wadi Rum and Qusayr 'Amra are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in Jordan that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
2 of the 10 in this guide: Wadi Rum and Qusayr 'Amra. That is not the full count for Jordan, only the listed sites that made this guide.
Arabic. The currency is JOD.
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