Winston's Hiccup

A map of Jordan and its neighbors. The very large triangle of land in Saudi Arabia that is pointing towards the Dead Sea is known as ‘Winston's hiccup’

Winston's Hiccup or Churchill's Sneeze is the huge zigzag in Jordan's eastern border with Saudi Arabia, supposedly because Winston Churchill drew the boundary of Transjordan after a generous and lengthy lunch.

In modern times

In the modern era, Jordan's boundaries with Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia do not generally hamper tribal nomads in their movements, although for a few groups the borders do technically separate them from traditional grazing areas. Conversely, the border between Jordan and Israel is governed more heavily. Officially, the borders were set by a series of agreements between the United Kingdom and the government of what eventually became Saudi Arabia, first formally defined in the Hadda Agreement of 1925.^[1] In 1965 Jordan and Saudi Arabia concluded a bilateral agreement that realigned and defined the boundary.^[2] The realignment resulted in some exchange of territory, and Jordan's coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba was lengthened by about eighteen kilometers.

See also

• Geography of Saudi Arabia
• Geography of Jordan
• British Mandate of Palestine
• Amman Governorate
• Zarqa Governorate
• Al Jawf Province
• Al Harrah
• Azraq

References

1. ^ http://untreaty.un.org/unts/60001_120000/15/26/00029300.pdf
2. ^ IBS No. 60 - Jordan (JO) & Saudi Arabia (SA) 1965

External links

• Winston's Hiccup in A Jordan travel guide by Matthew Teller
• Wadi Sirhan: A New Proposed Trade Route