Transjordan
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Map of the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine |
The
Emirate of Transjordan was an autonomous political division of the
British Mandate of Palestine, created as an administrative entity in April 1921 before the Mandate came into effect. It was geographically equivalent to today's Kingdom of
Jordan, and remained under the nominal auspices of the
League of Nations, until its independence in 1946.
Initially, both the territory to the East and the West of the Jordan river were the British Mandate of Palestine. "Transjordan" was a word coined as a reference to the part of Palestine "across the Jordan", i.e. on the far (eastern) side of the
Jordan River. On the western side of the
Jordan River was the remaining 21% of the Palestine Mandate,
Palestine which contained many places of historical and religious significance to
Judaism,
Christianity, and
Islam.
Under the
Ottoman empire, Transjordan did not correspond precisely to a political division, though most of it belonged to the
Vilayet of
Syria and a small southern section came from the Vilayet of
Hejaz. The inhabitants of northern Jordan had traditionally associated with Syria, those of southern Jordan with the Arabian Peninsula, and those of western Jordan with the administrative districts west of the Jordan River. However, the creation of the
Hejaz Railway by the Ottoman Empire had started to reshape the associations within the territory. Historically the territory had formed part of various empires; among these are the
Jewish,
Assyrian,
Achaemenid, Macedonian (
Seleucid),
Nabataean,
Ptolemaic,
Roman,
Sassanid,
Muslim,
Crusader, and Ottoman empires.
The Mandate for Palestine, while specifying actions in support of Jewish immigration and political status, stated that in the territory to the east of the Jordan River, Britain could 'postpone or withhold' those articles of the Mandate concerning a 'Jewish National Home'. The territories to the East of the Jordan River had never been promised at any time as part of Jewish National Home. In September 1922, the British government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved by the League on 11 September. From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as Palestine, and the part east of the Jordan as Transjordan. Technically they remained one mandate but most official documents referred to them as if they were two separate mandates. Transjordan remained under British control until 1946.
The borders and territory of Transjordan were not determined until after the Mandate came into effect. The borders in the east of the country were designed so as to aid the British in building an oil pipeline from their Mandate of
Iraq through Transjordan to seaports in the Palestine Mandate.
The
Hashemite Emir Abdullah, elder son of Britain's wartime Arab ally
Sharif Hussein of Mecca, was placed on the throne of Transjordan. Britain recognized Transjordan as a state on
May 15,
1923 and gradually relinquished control, limiting its oversight to financial, military and foreign policy matters. In March 1946, under the
Treaty of London, Transjordan became a kingdom and on
May 25,
1946, the parliament of Transjordan proclaimed the emir king, and formally changed the name of the country from the Emirate of Transjordan to the
Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. In December 1948, Abdullah took the title King of Jordan, and he officially changed the country's name to the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949. The following year he annexed the West Bank. With the exception of the French
Cisjordanie, the coinage,
Cisjordan, meant to apply specifically to the
West Bank at that time, has not since caught on, outside Jordanian circles.
*
Jordan*
Palestine*
Cisjordan*
Oultrejordain*
British Mandate of Palestine*
Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace*
Jordan - History: The making of Transjordan, King Hussein's official page
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US Library of Congress country study
