Ottomans by the third battalion of the Jewish Legion of the British expeditionary corps, and its commander, , was made military governor of Salt. After the war, the town was the site which Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner of Palestine, chose to make his announcement that the British favoured a Hejazi Hashemite ruled entity on the East Bank of the Mandatory Palestine (current Jordan). This wish became reality in 1921 when Abdullah I became Emir of Transjordan. Salt seemed to be the city that would be chosen as the capital of the new emirate since most of the industry and commerce flowed through Salt. During this period Salt had no high schools. Even so, Abdullah picked the city as the capital of his emerging emirate but later changed his mind and moved his compound and entourage to Amman when he and the notables of Salt had a disagreement. Amman at that time was a small city of only 20,000 people which experienced rapid growth. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 16,176 inhabitants in Al-Salt, of whom 2,157 were Christian. Municipal districts The Greater Salt Municipality is divided into nine districts: Education Salt contains many schools, including a public secondary school dating back to 1918, as well as many private schools that date back to the 1800s, such as the Latin School and the Catholic School. It is also the home of the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf, a non-profit educational center for people with hearing impairment. The city has two universities surrounding it: Al-Balqa` Applied University established in 1997 and Al-Ahliyya Amman University (Amman National University) located on the highway connecting Amman to Salt. Tourism Ottoman mansions At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when the Ottomans established a regional administrative base in Salt and encouraged settlement from other parts of the empire, the city's status increased, many merchants arrived and, with their newly acquired wealth, built the fine houses that can still be admired in Salt today. These splendid yellow sandstone buildings incorporate a variety of styles. Typically, they have domed roofs, interior courtyards and characteristic tall, arched windows. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Abu Jaber mansion, built between 1892 and 1906, which has frescoed ceilings, painted by Italian artists, and is reputed to be the finest example of a 19th-century merchant house in the region. Roman tombs and Ayyubid citadel