SALT, AS-

also spelled Salt, or Es-salt, town, west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway (often called the As-Salt Road) leading from Amman to Jerusalem. The town is situated in the Al-Balqa' highland, about 2,6002,750 feet (about 790840 m) above sea level, and is built on two hills, one of which has the ruins of a 13th-century fortress. The town was known as Saltus in Byzantine times and was the seat of a bishopric; it was later destroyed by the Mongols and then was rebuilt by the Mamluk sultan Baybars I (reigned 126077). In the early 1830s, As-Salt was again destroyed by the Egyptian viceroy Ibrahim Pasha during his campaigns against Palestine. After World War I it was at As-Salt that Sir Herbert Samuel, British high commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan, announced to the Transjordanian sheikhs and notables that the British favoured self-government for the country (August 1920). The town is an agricultural market and an administrative centre. The chief crops produced in the vicinity are grapes (for raisins), olives, and grains; tanning extract is produced from sumac bushes. In 1966 a pharmaceutical factory was opened at As-Salt. Pop., including adjacent localities (1994 est.), 187,014.