The Arab world, distributed in the Middle East and North Africa, has a total of 22 countries, which are predominantly Arabs and whose mother tongue is Arabic.
These 22 countries also have one thing in common, all of which are coastal States. But there are two coastal States that are more special and seem to look more like landlocked countries. One is Iraq, a large country with a coastline of only 60 kilometers and almost blocked by Kuwait.
Iraq was almost blocked as a landlocked country by Kuwait
The other is Jordan, which has the shortest coastline among Arab countries, at only 26 km. What is more special is that before 1965, Jordan's coastline was only 7 kilometers, almost becoming a landlocked country, and the length of the coastline now has increased by more than 2 times compared to before 1965.
This additional 19 kilometres of coastline was exchanged for saudi arabia, its southern neighbor. Why did Saudi Arabia "give" Jordan 19 kilometers of coastline?
Jordan's coastline is only 26 km
Jordan's only outlet to the sea is the Gulf of Aqaba, where most of the coastline is occupied by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Before 1965, Jordan's coastline was only 7 kilometers and was almost crammed into a landlocked country. Therefore, if Jordan is to become a solid coastal state, it must have good relations with its neighbor Saudi Arabia.
Jordan (green) and Saudi Arabia (yellow)
Saudi Arabia occupies the two holy cities of the Islamic world, Mecca and Medina, and plays a pivotal role in the Arab world and the Entire Islamic World. Jordan, by contrast, may seem small, but its influence is unprecedented. Because jordan's royal family, the Hashemite family, was once the founder of the Arab Empire and Islamic civilization.
The location of Mecca and Medina
The origins of Saudi Arabia and Jordan begin with the founding of Islam. Before the founding of Islamic civilization, the Arabian Peninsula had many tribes and conquests against each other.
In the 7th century, Muhammad from the Hashemite family of Mecca founded Islam, but Muhammad was deeply persecuted in Mecca and moved to Medina as a missionary. Eventually, under the leadership of Muhammad, the Arab tribes were unified and the Arab Empire was established. Mecca and Medina became holy cities of Islam.
Conquest of the Arab Empire
The Arab Empire continued to expand outwards, spanning three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. This was also accompanied by the expansion of Islamic civilization, with many peoples, in addition to the Arabs, embracing Islam, the two most influential of which were the Persians and the Seljuk Turks (the founding peoples of the Ottoman Empire).
▲ Map of the expansion of the Arab Empire
Later, the Arab Empire fell apart due to internal struggle for power and profit, and was destroyed by the Mongols in 1258 AD. With the withdrawal of the Mongol Empire, the masters of the Islamic world became the Ottoman Empire, and the vast majority of Arabs were under Ottoman rule.
Large tracts of land along the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, the Hashemite family that controlled Mecca, given their direct descendants of the founders of Islam and their high prestige in the Islamic world, allowed the Hashemite family to continue to administer Mecca.
The territory of the Ottoman Empire encompassed Mecca and Medina
However, in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula (Neizhi region), due to the wide desert and hot climate, it was a "barren land", and the Ottoman Empire did not include the interior into the sphere of influence, but there were many Arab tribes in the Ottoman camp.
In the interior of the Arabian Peninsula, there are two main families vying for power, one is the pro-Ottoman Rashid family, and the other is the anti-Ottoman Saudi family. During the Ottoman Period, the Rashid family had dominion over the Nejj region.
▲The general location of the Uchishi area
In World War I, the Ottoman Empire joined the German-Austrian allied camp and became the main rivalry of Britain and France in the Middle East. There were many peoples within the Ottoman Empire, including Christian Greeks and Yugoslavs in Europe, and Arabs in islam in the Middle East.
In order to achieve the goal of dismembering the Ottoman Empire from within, the British decided to take advantage of ethnic contradictions to support the independence of the Arabs in the Ottoman-ruled areas in the Middle East.
The Hashemite family enjoyed prestige in the Arab world, and the Hashemite family had always hoped to restore the glory of the Arab Empire. In 1916, the British supported the 38th patriarch of the Hashemite family, Hussein Ali, to independence from the Ottoman Empire and establish the "Hejaz State" with Mecca as its capital.
▲Extent of the Kingdom of Hejaz (green)
But the Hashemites didn't just want access to the Hejaz region, they wanted to once again turn the Arab region into a unified state like the Arab Empire.
Britain and France did not want the Arabs to be reunited again, preferring "divide and rule", that is, the establishment of several states in the Arab region. Thus Britain and France reached the Sykes-Pique Agreement, which secretly divided the Arab region, with France occupying Syria and Lebanon and Britain occupying Palestine and the Two Rivers Valley in the territory of the former Ottoman Empire.
▲ The sphere of influence secretly delineated by Britain and France
In the British mandated territories, the British used the Jordan River as the boundary, referring to the West Bank as "Palestine" and the east Bank of the Jordan River as "Transjordan", supporting abdullah I, the second son of King Hussein of Hejaz, as the chief of the Emirate of Transjordan, and establishing a semi-independent Emir regime in Transjordan. Hussein's third son, Faisal I, was King of Iraq.
▲ The location of Transjordan
With the support of Britain, there were three states in the Arab world founded by the Hashemite family, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the Arab region after World War I, in addition to the three Arab countries established by the Hashemite family, there was also a "neizhi". Nejji's forces mainly included the pro-Ottoman Rashid family and the pro-British Saudi family.
▲ The three major families of the Arabian Peninsula
In order to establish the authority of the "post-Ottoman era", the British fully supported the Saud family in eliminating the Rashid family and establishing a pro-British regime in Nezhi through arms support and the provision of armaments. In 1921, the Saud family became the ruler of the Sultanate of Nejd.
Like the Hashemites in the Hejaz region, the Saud family's ambitions do not stop there. The House of Saud wants to establish its authority in the Arab world, but only through the appropriation of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. That is, to occupy Mecca and Medina, the Saud family must destroy the Kingdom of Hejaz.
Due to the outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia to establish Soviet power and was hostile to Britain and France, the Soviet Union and Russia were furious and made public the "Sykes-Pique Agreement" that had been secretly divided between Britain and France in the Middle East, causing an uproar in the Arab world.
The Hashemite family of the Hejaz Kingdom originally thought that the British would help them unify the Arab region, but the Sykes-Pique Agreement was strongly opposed by the Hashemite family, and the Hejaz Kingdom and the British went from being once allies to enemies.
▲The scope of the Sultanate of Nezhi
The Saud family of the Sultanate of Nejd only wanted to seize Mecca and Medina, and had little interest in establishing a unified Arab state. Therefore, the British supported Neizhi in eliminating Hejaz.
In 1924, Nejj occupied The Hejaz capital, Mecca, which was later renamed "Saudi Arabia". The Hashemite family went into exile, and at this time the hashemite family's power in the Arab region was only Iraq and Transjordan.
The descendants of the Prophet Muhammad were expelled from the holy city, which was difficult for many devout adherents of Islam to accept, and Saudi Arabia and Britain faced pressure from public opinion. Considering the influence of the Hashemite family, in 1925 the British assigned Aqaba, the coastal city of the former Hejaz Kingdom, to the Emirate of Transjordan, which changed from a nearly landlocked country to a country with a coastline of 7 kilometers.
Map of the Gulf of Aqaba
After World War II, with the decline of British power, it was unable to maintain order in the Middle East. The British-controlled Arab states of Transjordan and Iraq, ruled by the Hashemite family, were formally independent of Britain.
In 1958, there was a coup d'état in Iraq, and the "Free Officers Organization" headed by the young general Qasim overthrew the Faisal dynasty and established the Republic of Iraq. The history of the Hashemite family's rule in Iraq came to an end. The only country ruled by the direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad is Jordan.
After Jordan's formal independence, the area is only 90,000 square kilometers, the space for development is relatively small, 80% of the land area is covered by tropical desert, the population is only concentrated in the western and southern Jordan Valley regions, and economic development is very limited. The 7 km coastline has seriously constrained the development of maritime trade.
▲Jordanian terrain
After World War II, the oil-rich Arab countries became rich countries. However, Jordan's land is explored with very little oil resources and it is an oil-poor country.
The disadvantages of oil-poor countries have prevented Jordan from enjoying the same benefits of oil resources as its neighbors, its economic development is lagging behind, and its manufactured goods are extremely dependent on imports.
Jordan's only way to fully develop trade is to expand its only port city, Aqaba. However, the 7 km coastline still restricts the development of Aqaba. How to increase the coastline and optimize the port layout of Aqaba has become a top priority for Jordan.
▲Jordan's main city
Another problem is facing Aqaba, a city located on the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were enemies for a time because of the overthrow of the Hashemite family. As soon as the goods left the port of Aqaba, they immediately sailed into Saudi Arabia's territory, so the rigidity of relations between the two countries made it more difficult for trade to develop.
But with the establishment of Israel after World War II, the stability of the Arab and Islamic worlds was threatened. In particular, Jordan is at the forefront of the Arab world's resistance to Israel, and Saudi Arabia, which has always regarded itself as the "boss" of the Arab world, naturally has support for Jordan. Both the Hashemite family and the Saud family have put aside their former grievances and moved towards cooperation. This gives room for dialogue on the issue of territorial replacement.
With an area of 2.2 million square kilometers, Saudi Arabia is a large country in the Middle East, with a coastline of more than 2,000 kilometers, and the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba has not been the focus of Saudi Arabia's development. But this is decisive for Jordan's development.
After nearly a decade of negotiations, in 1965, the two countries reached an agreement on territorial swaps. The Tubbag region in southeastern Jordan is approximately 0.7 million square kilometres (mostly desert) in exchange for two saudi inland territories and one coastal territory (0.6 million square kilometres).
▲Compare the map before and after the replacement
The Arabian Peninsula is rich in oil resources, and in addition to the oil resources that have been explored, there are still large areas of unexplored landlocked land. Once oil resources are discovered in the swap territory, it is very likely to become the focus of controversy between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
In an effort to quell possible disputes, Jordan and Saudi Arabia reached an agreement that "once the exchange of resources such as oil is found in the exchange of territory, the two countries will share resources." Through territorial swaps, Jordan's coastline extended 19 km southwards, and Jordan's 26 km coastline was formally formed.
The coastline extends 19 kilometres to the south, providing Jordan with valuable land resources for the expansion of the port of Aqaba. In the decades that followed, Jordan renovated Aqaba, changing Aqaba's old state and providing new support for Jordan to develop its import and export trade.
▲Jordanian coastline after territorial replacement
With the development of oil trade in the Middle East, the role of the Suez route transporting oil resources from the Arabian Peninsula has become increasingly important. However, relations between Iran and the Arab countries have deteriorated, and uncertainty has increased in the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf.
In addition, in the route from the Persian Gulf to the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean Sea, pirates near the Gulf of Aden have long been a headache for passing ships.
▲ Oil can be transported to sea through Aqaba
Jordan's Gulf of Aqaba region, which avoids the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden, greatly increases the safety of passing ships and reduces the range of oil transportation. In this way, the oil resources of Iraq and Saudi Arabia have entered Europe by taking the route of "Aqaba Port-Suez Canal-Mediterranean" to reduce the cost of oil transportation.
After a land swap in 1965, Aqaba became a new engine of Jordan's economic development.
▲City view of Aqaba
Long-time author | Eagle
Live bar sports authors | football and history lovers
Responsible editor | thomas
Graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science| editor-in-chief of the Global Intelligence Officer
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