Aqaba

Only port of Jordan, lying on the eastern side of the head of the Gulf of Aqaba; population (1996 est) 52,000. It is an important shipping, commercial, and tourist centre, linked by highway to the Jordanian capital Ammān. The Israeli port and resort of Elat lies just to the west of Aqaba. A border crossing near the two ports was opened in 1994, for non-Israelis and non-Jordanians.

Identified with the biblical Elath, Aqaba is on the old pilgrim route from Egypt to Mecca. Once the Roman stronghold of Aelana, it has belonged at various times to Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, and Hejaz, for whom it was captured by Lawrence of Arabia in 1917.