After experiencing a period of fast population growth from 2000 to 2020, increasing the population by over 5 million people, the Jordan population is expected to continue growing. The population is expected to peak at 14.15 million people in 2080, after which it will begin to decline slowly, ending the 21st century with 13.69 million people.
Between 2000 and 2020, Jordan grew at rates between 1.37% and 5.00%. The current population growth rate is 1.00%, adding about 101,000 people to the population from 2019 to 2020. Jordan has positive net migration and a fertility rate of 2.77 births per woman, which is above the population replacement rate of 2.1 births.
With fertility rates gradually decreasing, the population growth rate is decreasing as well. This will lead to Jordan’s population plateau and eventual decline when the death rates begin exceeding the birth rates.
Today, the 95-97% of Jordanians are Arabs, but there are many other ethnic groups in Jordan. There are about 500,000 Iraqis, and over 500,000 Syrian refugees have moved to Jordan to escape violence in the last two years. Assyrian Christians make up 0.8% of the population, most of whom are Eastern Aramaic speaking refugees. Here are 30,000 Kurds, most of which are refugees from Turkey, Iran and Iraq, and about 5,000 Armenians. Jews were once prevalent in the country but now number just 300.
The dramatic population shifts and massive influxes of immigrants are expected to stabilize, and even slow, in the years to come. The annual growth rate as of 2019 was 1.68%. Predictions say that this rate will peak in 2020 around 2.2% before slowing down towards 1% annually in 2050. It may seem as though this decrease wouldn't be desirable, but it is much more stable than the volatility of the past. The same projections say that the population of Jordan will be 10,208,662 in 2020, 11,122,063 in 2030, 12,679,815 in 2040, and 14,187,734 in 2050.
| Jordan Population (as of 10/15/2024) | 11,565,630 |
| Last UN Estimate (July 1, 2024) | 11,552,900 |
| Births per Day | 647 |
| Deaths per Day | 99 |
| Migrations per Day | -428 |
| Net Change per Day | 120 |
| Population Change Since Jan. 1 | 34,560 |
Net increase of 1 person every 12 minutes
Population estimates based on interpolation of data from World Population Prospects
| One birth every 2.23 minutes | |
| One death every 14.55 minutes | |
| One emigrant every 3.37 minutes | |
| Net gain of one person every 12 minutes |
City | 2024 Pop. |
|---|---|
| Amman | 1,275,857 |
| Zarqa | 792,665 |
| Irbid | 307,480 |
| Russeifa | 268,237 |
| Wadi as Sir | 181,212 |
| 'Ajlun | 125,557 |
| Aqaba | 95,048 |
| Rukban | 85,000 |
| Madaba | 82,335 |
| As Salt | 80,189 |
Jordan is an ancient Arab nation in the middle east. Although it is technically landlocked (it shares its border with Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria), it is located between the Mediterranean and Red Seas and contains the massive Jordan River. The land itself is mostly flat and covers 34,495 square miles (89,342 square kilometers) of surface area. Using the 2017 population of 9.7 million, the population density of Jordan as a whole is 281.2 people per square mile (108.6 people per square kilometer), which ranks 70th in the world.
Jordan is an extremely urban country, with nearly 85% of the people living there residing in cities or the surrounding metro areas. Despite this unusually high number, all those people are distributed between many smaller cities as opposed to a few larger ones. The capital and largest city of Jordan is Amman, which has about 4 million people. Amman is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities and one of the most liberal in the Arab world. Amman has a population density of 3,143 people per square kilometer (8,140/square mile).
Year | Population | Change | Density (/km²) | Population Rank | Density Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 11,552,900 | 1.6% | 130 | 84 | 94 |
| 2023 | 11,439,200 | 1.8% | 129 | 84 | 91 |
| 2020 | 10,865,200 | 1.81% | 122 | 85 | 93 |
| 2019 | 10,671,900 | 2% | 120 | 86 | 93 |
| 2018 | 10,462,300 | 2.23% | 118 | 87 | 94 |
| 2017 | 10,234,200 | 2.28% | 115 | 89 | 94 |
| 2015 | 9,544,730 | 5.52% | 108 | 92 | 98 |
| 2010 | 7,297,040 | 3.89% | 82 | 101 | 119 |
| 2005 | 6,029,590 | 2.28% | 68 | 102 | 128 |
| 2000 | 5,386,940 | 2.54% | 61 | 104 | 132 |
| 1995 | 4,752,100 | 5.58% | 54 | 108 | 137 |
| 1990 | 3,621,910 | 5.44% | 41 | 120 | 145 |
| 1985 | 2,778,810 | 4.46% | 31 | 127 | 154 |
| 1980 | 2,234,190 | 3.3% | 25 | 131 | 158 |
| 1975 | 1,899,060 | 3.94% | 21 | 132 | 158 |
| 1970 | 1,565,160 | 7.32% | 18 | 134 | 164 |
| 1965 | 1,099,440 | 5.2% | 12 | 141 | 173 |
| 1960 | 853,471 | 6.41% | 10 | 142 | 180 |
| 1955 | 625,567 | 7.35% | 7 | 145 | 186 |
Year | Population | Change | Density (/km²) | Population Rank | Density Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 11,552,900 | 1.6% | 130 | 84 | 94 |
| 2025 | 11,520,700 | 1.18% | 130 | 84 | 95 |
| 2030 | 12,448,800 | 1.56% | 140 | 83 | 92 |
| 2035 | 13,440,800 | 1.54% | 151 | 81 | 88 |
| 2040 | 14,471,300 | 1.49% | 163 | 81 | 86 |
| 2045 | 15,472,000 | 1.35% | 174 | 81 | 84 |
| 2050 | 16,367,400 | 1.13% | 184 | 79 | 79 |
| 2055 | 17,095,200 | 0.87% | 193 | 79 | 78 |
| 2060 | 17,802,200 | 0.81% | 201 | 79 | 78 |
| 2065 | 18,482,900 | 0.75% | 208 | 79 | 75 |
| 2070 | 19,109,800 | 0.67% | 215 | 78 | 72 |
| 2075 | 19,651,700 | 0.56% | 221 | 78 | 71 |
| 2080 | 20,110,200 | 0.46% | 227 | 78 | 69 |
| 2085 | 20,502,200 | 0.39% | 231 | 77 | 67 |
| 2090 | 20,857,900 | 0.34% | 235 | 75 | 66 |
| 2095 | 21,135,000 | 0.26% | 238 | 74 | 66 |
23.5
Total
23.9
Male
22.9
Female
There are people over age 18 in Jordan.
Year | Date |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 10 December 2015 |
| 2004 | 1 October 2004 |
| 1994 | 10 December 1994 |
Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab kingdom in the Middle East bordered by Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, and Palestine. This desert country came into existence after WWII when West Asia was divided and it gained independence in 1946. In its early history, the area was inhabited by many Semitic Canaanite-speaking kingdoms and it has been controlled by many empires, including the Akkadian Empire, Ancient Egypt, the Hittite Empire and Israelites.
In 2007, there were up to 1 million Iraqis in the country. Since the Iraq War, many Iraqi Christians have moved to Jordan and number up to 500,000. There are also about 500,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. In 2008, Jordan was home to 1.95 million Palestinian refugees, most of whom were Jordanian citizens. Jordan later revoked the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians to keep them from resettling West Bank residents.
It's estimated that there are 1.2 million illegal migrant workers and 500,000 legal migrant workers in Jordan, and thousands of foreign women come to work in the nightclubs and hotels.
Muslims account for 82% of Jordan's population, 93% of which are Sunni Muslims. This is the highest percentage of Sunni Muslims in the world. There is a Christian minority of about 6%.
The economy in Jordan is pretty well split up between different industries, with trade and finance accounting for 1/3 of the nation's GDP, private enterprise and government spending making up 1/4, and both transportation, communication, public utilities, and construction as well as mining and manufacturing both accounting for roughly 1/5 of the GDP. Despite all of these relatively strong industries, Jordan has long struggled with recession, debt, and unemployment and relies heavily upon foreign aid, which is largely due to the presence of larges numbers of refugees in the country. The land is nearly all useless as far as growing agriculture, and Jordan has to import more all of their food. Water supply is also an issue in the region.
Jordan's government operates as a parliamentary monarchy, where the prime minister is in charge of the government as well as the multi-party system. There is also a king in place, who can exercise his power through his appointments. The government has been under the process of decentralization under King Abdullah II, who succeeded his father in 1999, where the country will be divided into three regions: North, Central, and South; each of which will have its council to deal with their individual political, social, legal and economic issues.
Jordan wasn't recognized as an independent country by The United Nations until 1946, and as such does not have much for a lengthy population history. Shortly after in 1948 thousands of Palestinian refugees came to the country when Israel created a British-mandate in Palestine. More refugees came to Jordan suddenly in 1967 when Israel took control of Jerusalem and West Bank during the Six-Day War.
Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel, ending a 46-year-old war with them, in 1994 and the population spiked during this time. In the early 2000s, Al-Queda exerted itself over the area planting explosives in cars and firing missiles at other countries from within Jordan.