Amman was a small town called Philadelphia in Roman times, shrank to a village of a few hundred families by the nineteenth century, and then grew explosively through successive waves of arrivals: Circassians in the 1870s, Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, Iraqis after 2003 and Syrians after 2011. It now holds around four million people, more than a third of the national population.
The Citadel
Jabal al-Qala sits above the downtown and has been occupied for some 7000 years. On it stand the Temple of Hercules with its enormous surviving columns and a fragment of a colossal marble hand, the Umayyad Palace with a reconstructed domed audience hall, and a Byzantine church. The Jordan Archaeological Museum here holds the Ain Ghazal statues, plaster human figures made around 7500 BCE and among the oldest of their kind anywhere.
The Roman theatre
Cut into the hillside below, the theatre seats 6000, dates from the second century and is still used for performances. Two small museums of folklore and popular traditions occupy the wings. The forum in front is where the city sits in the evening.
Downtown
Al-Balad, the old centre, has the gold souk, the vegetable market, the Grand Husseini Mosque and the best street food in the country. Hashem, an alley restaurant serving only falafel, hummus and fuul, has fed kings and remains cheap. Habibah, around the corner, sells kunafa by the tray.
Rainbow Street and Weibdeh
Jabal Amman around Rainbow Street has cafes, small galleries and the Friday market in summer. Jabal Weibdeh next door is quieter and more residential, with the Darat al Funun art centre in a set of 1920s houses above the city. West Amman, around Abdoun and Sweifieh, is where the malls and expensive restaurants are.
Museums
The Jordan Museum in Ras al-Ain is the national museum and holds the Dead Sea Scrolls copper scroll and the Ain Ghazal figures in rotation. It is well curated and rarely busy.
Practicalities
Amman is a hill city and the distances look shorter on a map than your legs will report; use taxis or ride-hailing, which are cheap. The Citadel and downtown are easily combined on foot going downhill. Winter is genuinely cold, with occasional snow, since the city sits at around 1000 m.
The name
The city has been Rabbath Ammon, Philadelphia after the Ptolemaic king Philadelphus, and then Amman again, and all three names are still visible on ruins within a kilometre of each other. The modern spelling comes from the Ammonites, whose kingdom had its capital on the Citadel hill three thousand years ago.