Mafraq (Arabic: المفرق Al-Mafraq, local dialects: Mafrag or Mafra; lit.

It is located about 17 km west of the historic Nabataean and Byzantine town of Umm el-Jimal, which was built in the 1st century.

[2] The city gained more significance after the establishment of the Hejaz Railway connecting Damascus (and by extension Istanbul) to Medina in 1908.

The Ottoman Turks renamed the city "Mafraq", which means "crossroads" in Arabic.

[3] The city of Mafraq is located in northern Jordan at the boundary between the Hauran plateau and the Syrian Desert, about 80 km north of Amman.

Mafraq has a station on the 1,050 mm (3 ft 5+11⁄32 in) national railway system.