MA'AN

town, southern Jordan. It is a regional trade centre for the sparsely settled southern part of the country, which is inhabited mainly by the Huwaytat and other Bedouin tribes. Ma'an is the chief road and rail junction of southern Jordan. The town lies on the Hejaz-Jordan Railway, which runs north-south and connects to Damascus (Syria) in the north. The part of the rail line south of Ma'an that formerly reached Medina (now in Saudi Arabia) was largely destroyed by Arab guerrillas led by the English leader T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) in World War I; it has been replaced by the Desert Highway, which roughly follows the route of the former rail line in its Jordanian section. An all-weather road runs from the port of Al-'Aqabah north to Ma'an and there connects to Jordan's main north-south highway, which leads to Amman, the capital. Ma'an and Al-'Aqabah are also connected by rail via Batn al-Ghul. After World War I the status of Ma'an and all of southern Jordan was disputed between the emirate of Transjordan (later the kingdom of Jordan) and the kingdom of the Hejaz to the south. When King Ibn Sa'ud conquered the Hejaz (now part of Saudi Arabia) in 1925, the British placed the entire Ma'an area under Transjordan's authority. The de facto annexation was not recognized by the Saudis until 1965, when a treaty was signed fixing the frontier and placing Ma'an and its environs well within Jordan. From the town, travelers set out to visit the ancient ruins of Petra, 19 miles (30 km) northwest. Pop. (1993 est.) 34,900.