Yemen
This desert country in the Middle East lies on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
GEOGRAPHY
About twice the size of the state of Wyoming, Yemen is located on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, an area of land in Southwest Asia. It shares the peninsula with the countries of Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman. Yemen is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and the Gulf of Aden to the south.
Coastal plains ideal for farming stretch inland from both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The interior of the country gives way to rugged mountains, including the Sarawat Mountains, a mountain range that runs through much of the western part of the Arabian Peninsula. Eastern Yemen is home to part of the fifth-largest desert in the world, the Rub‘ al-Khali. Nicknamed “the Empty Quarter,” the desert has the longest stretch of continuous sand in the world, covering much of the Arabian Peninsula.
The endless sand and arid climate make the desert uninhabitable. Yemen is so dry that it doesn’t have any permanently flowing rivers—only dry river valleys known as wadis.
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Most of the Yemeni population are Arab, or originally from the Arabian Peninsula and its neighboring territories. Minority groups living in the country include Somali descendants along the coasts and small Egyptian communities throughout the northern parts of the country.
Most Yemenis are Muslims, or people who practice Islam. Within the religion of Islam, there are two major branches of believers: the Sunnis and the Shiites. Most Yemenis are Sunni Muslims, but a sizeable Shiite population lives in the country as well.
Like in other Middle Eastern countries, Islam strongly influences Yemeni culture. Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan (a month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting, or abstaining from food), and the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam) are two of the traditional Islamic holidays that Yemenis celebrate.
Yemen's ancient architecture is famous for its age and beauty—some buildings are more than 2,000 years old. Sunbaked stone blocks and bricks form structures that reach several stories high. The walled city of Shibam is representative of this architecture.
Yemen’s largest city is its capital, Sanaa, one of the oldest cities in the world. Its Great Mosque, a house of worship used by Muslims, dates back to the time of Muhammad in the early seventh century.
NATURE
The Arabian highlands in western Yemen are the country’s most biodiverse regions. Although much of the native forest has been cut down for agriculture, lush cloud forests survive in some locations. Parts of the Yemeni mountains here contain the most varied collection of plant life on the Arabian Peninsula.
The abundance of plants in these regions attracts diverse bird life, including Arabian partridges, Yemen linnets, and the northern bald ibis, one of the rarest birds in the Middle East. The highlands are also home to many mammals, including the endangered Arabian leopard and the Hamadryas baboon. No other baboon species live as far north as this one.
The Rub‘ al-Khali region has few plants and animals because of the lack of water. The species that do survive there tend to cluster near the edges of the desert and avoid the sandy interior. Some of these species include the venomous Egyptian cobra, the shield-tailed scorpion, and the Yemeni mouse.
HISTORY
People have lived in Yemen's corner of the Arabian Peninsula since the 12th century B.C. Before the arrival of Islam, wealthy city-states and empires like the Minaean, Sabaean, and Ḥimyarite controlled the region.
These ancient empires lived in Yemen from roughly 1200 B.C. to A.D. 525 and became rich by producing and trading frankincense and myrrh, resins extracted from trees. These spices were among the most valued products in the ancient world. Islam arrived in Yemen around A.D. 630 and transformed the region. The religion spread quickly, and its practices and traditions still dominate Yemen's culture today.
At the beginning of the 15th century, Yemenis were supposedly among the first people to popularize coffee as a beverage. As a result, the country became a source of conflict between the Egyptians, the Ottomans (from what is now Turkey), and various European powers that wanted to control the market for Coffea arabica, believed to be the first species of coffee cultivated in the world. The plant was eventually smuggled out of Yemen and brought to other countries. Yemeni cities that were once major coffee centers shrunk to the size of small villages.
By the 1800s, Yemen was caught in the middle of an imperial tug-of-war. The Ottoman Empire claimed northern Yemen and the British took over Aden, a city in the south. This division eventually created two Yemeni nations, North Yemen and South Yemen.
North Yemen became independent after World War I, following the departure of Ottoman forces in 1918. (The Ottomans fought on the losing side of World War I, alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Ottoman Empire ended in 1922.) South Yemen didn’t gain its independence from the British until 1967.
Once the two nations were independent, many people expected them to reunite to form one country. But that wouldn’t happen for about two decades. A few brief border wars took place between the countries during the 1970s and ’80s.
But then in 1990, the discovery of oil and natural gases in both North and South Yemen prompted the two nations to reunite. Neither side wanted to engage in a costly war over these important resources and decided it would be better to share the profits as one country. The constitution of the new republic of Yemen was adopted in 1990.
Though Yemen was now one country, tensions remained between groups from the northern and southern parts of the nation. In 2010, a pro-democracy movement known as the Arab Spring began sweeping through countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2011, Arab Spring protesters forced out Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had served as the country’s leader since the 1990 unification.
Following the Arab Spring protests, the country was deeply divided between several groups that supported different government leaders. In 2014, rebels called Houthis took over the capital city of Sanaa. The rebels are Shiite Muslims, part of the minority in Yemen. The Houthis were rebelling against the Sunni Muslim majority and wanted to place some of their fellow Houthis in leadership positions.
The rebellion divided the country along religious lines, and civil war still rages in the Yemen today. It’s created a humanitarian crisis, placing millions of Yemenis at risk of starvation; many people also don’t have access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and medicine. Other countries have attempted to help Yemen, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more difficult for help to get to the country.