Historical Sketch

In the early 16th, the Ottomans conquered the Levant region from the Mamluk Empire and subsequently created the two provinces of Aleppo and Damascus. During World War I, Great Britain and France occupied the territory and kept it after the Turkish defeat. The British portion was divided into Palestine and the Transjordan. The latter was given to the Hashemite family who had fought with the British against the Turks. In the mid-1930s began a series of insurgencies in the Palestine territory which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 without a portion with predominantly Arab population that was annexed by the Transjordan Emirate in 1950. Consequently, the country name was changed to Jordan and the emir was elevated to kingship. The British protectorate had formally ended in 1946 already. In the Seven-Days-War of 1967, Israel conquered back the West Bank of the Jordan river.

Monetary History Overview

After the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, Great Britain took over the rule in the Levant, dividing it into the territories of Palestine and the Transjordan. The military administration declared the Egyptian Pound current, which had already been circulating in the region during the Turkish rule. In August 1926, the Palestine Currency Board began operations and issued paper money for both British territories. The Palestinian Pound was at par with the Sterling.

After the end of the Palestine mandate territory, the Kingdom of the Jordan established its own Currency Board in July 1950. The Jordanian Dinar replaced the Palestinian currency at par, and the new national currency preserved the peg to the Pound Sterling until 1967. The Sterling devaluation was not followed, and the Dinar re-pegged to the US Dollar until 1975 when the reference currency switched to the IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR) unit. In 1988, the Dinar got floated and lost more than a third of its value until 1995. The Dollar peg was then reinstated and has remained unchanged since then.

Jordan joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 29.08.1952.

Currency Units Timeline

Currency Institutes Timeline

Monetary History Sources