Can refugee camps be considered as urban spaces? How can we qualify these spaces, subject to specific legal regimes, whose inhabitants when they are themselves refugees, have a legal status which limits their access to property, labor market, health or education. From a morphological point of view, camps seem similar to the informal settlements of the main Middle Eastern cities, although, often due to demographic pressure, they are more densely built. Camps are the result of a long history of hosting and settling refugee groups, since the creation in the 1920s of camps to host Armenian refugees fleeing the genocide. Jordanian urban growth is strongly related to the settlement of refugees since 1948, and the arrival of the first Palestinian refugees in the kingdom. Since then, different groups of refugees, mainly Iraqis and Syrians, have contributed to the urban fabric, by settling in urban areas or through the urbanisation of refugee camps. The role of refugees as city makers will be analysed with a focus on the effects of long-term settlement of refugees and the changing role of UNHCR policy. The presentation will focus on refugees’ settlement in Northern Jordan outside and inside camps. A focus will be put on the urbanisation process of Syrian camps in Jordan will be explored through the example of Zaatari camp. The camp has been deeply transformed by the refugees themselves, with the appropriation process of their shelters as well as the creation of small businesses and economic activities all around the camp. The role of forced migrants in the urban fabric in Jordan can be thus understood through a double dynamic: the settlement of refugees in urban areas and the ongoing urbanisation of Jordan’s refugee camps.