Jordan–Saudi Arabia border

The Aqaba question

The frontier crosses a tilted plateau of sand and lava flows where less than five inches of rain falls anywhere and hardly anyone lives; near the Gulf of Aqaba it drops over an escarpment up to 4,500 feet high into the rift valley. Wells and Jordan’s access to the sea are its only points of strategic value.^[1]

Under its mandate Britain claimed an outlet on the Gulf of Aqaba for Transjordan, while the Arabians counted Ma’an, about 50 miles to the north, as theirs because it had belonged to the Ottoman province of the Hejaz. The eastern and central sectors were agreed in 1925, with the Kaf region going to Nejd, but Britain drew the western line unilaterally. In 1927 the Hejaz and Nejd refused to accept it, while agreeing to keep the status quo in the Ma’an–Aqaba district.^[1]

“we find it impossible, in the present circumstances, to effect a final settlement of this question”^[1]

The 1965 exchange

Jordan became independent in 1946 with the question still open, and talks in 1961–63 failed. The agreement of August 1965 drew a new line of straight segments: Jordan gained 6,000 square kilometres inland and a coastline enlarged to 19 kilometres, and ceded 7,000 square kilometres of territory it had administered. The two also agreed to share equally any oil revenues from a zone along the line.^[1]