Built on seven hills, the gateway to Petra
Jordan's capital, a sprawling hillside city of white limestone buildings, built atop a Roman amphitheater that still hosts concerts today — and the usual starting point for the three-hour drive south to Petra, the rose-red city carved into rock.
Amman has been continuously inhabited for at least 7,000 years, known in antiquity as Rabbath Ammon, then as Philadelphia under the Romans (the well-preserved amphitheater downtown dates to that era). It grew slowly as an Ottoman-era town until becoming the capital of the newly created Emirate of Transjordan in 1921, then independent Jordan in 1946.