47 Fun Facts About Yemen

What is the constitutional capital and largest city of Yemen?

Sanaa, on a highland plateau about 2,300 metres up, is Yemen's constitutional capital and largest city; the Houthis took control of it in September 2014, forcing the government to relocate.

Which two countries share a land border with Yemen?

Saudi Arabia and Oman: the Saudi frontier runs along the north and the Omani border closes the east, while Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia lie across the water; Yemen is the peninsula's second-largest country.

What is the legendary queen who visited Solomon called in Arabic tradition?

Bilqis is the queen's name in Arabic and Islamic tradition, though the Quran leaves her unnamed; Makeda is the Ethiopian form, and the 12th-century Yemeni ruler Arwa al-Sulayhi was styled 'Bilqis the Younger'.

The Sabaeans' Great Dam, an ancient engineering marvel, stood near which city, their capital?

Marib: the dam irrigated the oasis around the Sabaean capital for over a millennium; the Quran's Surah Saba recalls its flood, and the final breach came around 575.

Which Judaism-influenced kingdom succeeded Saba around AD 275 and unified most of Yemen?

Himyarite: from its capital Zafar the kingdom absorbed Saba around 275 and ruled most of Yemen; its king Dhu Nuwas embraced Judaism before Aksum invaded from Ethiopia in 525.

Through which Red Sea port did Yemen ship its coffee to Europe in the 17th century?

Mocha, on Yemen's Red Sea coast, shipped the country's coffee to Europe from the 1600s, giving its name both to a coffee variety and to the chocolate-flavoured drink; Yemen then dominated world coffee supply.

The earliest reports of coffee drinking come from the mid-15th century among which group in Yemen?

Sufi mystics in Yemen's monasteries were drinking coffee by the mid-1400s to stay awake for night devotions, and the habit reached Mecca and Cairo within a century.

South Yemen, independent from 1967, held what distinction in the Middle East?

The region's only communist state: the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, run by the Marxist Yemeni Socialist Party from 1978, was the Arab world's sole Soviet-aligned Marxist state until unification.

In which year did North and South Yemen unite into the modern Republic of Yemen?

1990: the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen merged on 22 May 1990; a civil war between the former halves followed in 1994.

Who was the first president of unified Yemen, in power until the Arab Spring forced him out in 2012?

Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of North Yemen from 1978, became the united republic's first president at unification and handed power to his deputy Hadi in February 2012; he likened ruling Yemen to 'dancing on the heads of snakes'.

How did Yemen's long-time strongman, ousted in 2012, die in December 2017?

Killed by his erstwhile Houthi allies: days after the ex-president broke with the Houthis and called for an uprising against them, they killed him on 4 December 2017 as he tried to leave the capital.

The Houthi movement, which seized the capital in 2014, follows which branch of Islam?

Zaydi Shia: the Houthis, formally Ansar Allah, emerged in the late twentieth century from a revivalist movement among Yemen's Zaydi community, whose imams had ruled parts of the country on and off for a millennium.

Which country launched 'Operation Decisive Storm' against the Houthis in March 2015?

Saudi Arabia began airstrikes on 26 March 2015 at the head of a mostly Arab coalition, after President Hadi fled abroad; the Houthis were accused of receiving Iranian support.

Which three colours, in horizontal bands, make up Yemen's national flag?

Red, white and black: adopted at unification, the plain tricolour uses the pan-Arab colours of Egypt, Syria and Iraq but carries no stars, eagle or inscription.

Roughly how many Yemenis did the UN say needed humanitarian aid in 2019?

About 24 million: the UN put the number needing assistance at 24.1 million in 2019, some 80% of the population, calling Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Which Yemeni island, closer to Africa than Arabia, has about a third of its plant species found nowhere else?

About 90% of its reptiles and 95% of its land snails are also endemic; the Portuguese held a fort there in the early 1500s.

The umbrella-shaped dragon's blood tree of Yemen's islands is named for what?

Its dark red resin, called dragon's blood, oozes from cut bark and has been traded since antiquity as dye, varnish and medicine; the umbrella crown channels fog moisture to the roots.

The walled town of Shibam in eastern Yemen is famous for what?

Tower blocks built of mudbrick: about 500 of them, five to eleven storeys and up to 30 metres high, crowd the walled 16th-century town nicknamed the 'Manhattan of the Desert'.

The Old City of Yemen's capital, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been inhabited for roughly how long?

More than 2,500 years: UNESCO's 1986 listing notes the Old City has been settled for over two and a half millennia; its Great Mosque dates from the 7th century and the Salt Market long traded spices, raisins, copper and silver.

Zabid, a former capital and centre of Islamic learning, was placed on which UNESCO list in 2000?

World Heritage in Danger: UNESCO moved Zabid to the danger list in 2000, seven years after inscription, citing the replacement of about 40% of its historic houses with concrete and the decay of its souk.

Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb, the highest mountain in Yemen and in all of Arabia, is roughly how tall?

3,666 m: Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb rises southwest of the capital in the Sarawat range, the roof of the Arabian Peninsula; the surrounding western highlands catch the heaviest rain in Arabia, feeding terraced farms.

What is the Tihamah?

The hot, flat Red Sea coastal plain: the Tihamah runs along Yemen's west coast from the northern frontier to the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, with humid heat, lagoons and wadis that mostly dry out before reaching the sea.

The strait between Yemen and Djibouti, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, has a name meaning what?

Gate of Grief: Bab-el-Mandeb, often rendered 'Gate of Tears', is said to be named for the perils of its currents or for an ancient earthquake legend; it is one of the world's key shipping chokepoints.

Which stimulant leaf, chewed across Yemen, takes up to 40% of the capital basin's water?

Khat: the leaves of Catha edulis release the stimulant cathinone when chewed, and afternoon khat sessions are a social institution across Yemen, where the thirsty crop dominates irrigated farmland.

What is a jambiya?

A curved dagger worn at the belt: the jambiya is part of traditional male dress in Yemen, and demand for its prized rhinoceros-horn hilts helped drive the 1970s and 1980s collapse in black rhino numbers.

Saltah, Yemen's national dish, is a meat stew topped with a froth made from which spice?

Fenugreek: the whipped froth, hulba in Arabic, is spooned over the stew with sahawiq, a fresh relish of chillies, tomatoes and garlic, and the dish is eaten with flatbread at lunchtime.

What is Yemen's most popular sport?

Football: the country's favourite game by far, Yemen's national team reached its first AFC Asian Cup finals in 2019, losing all three group games in the UAE.

What is the currency of Yemen?

Rial: the Yemeni rial is issued by the Central Bank of Yemen; the dinar once used in the People's Democratic Republic was phased out after unification.

What was Operation Magic Carpet?

The airlift of Yemenite Jews to Israel: between June 1949 and September 1950 nearly 50,000 were flown to the new state in an operation financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, all but ending a community two millennia old.

Which Modern South Arabian language is the most widely spoken, centred on Yemen's far east?

Mehri, spoken in the far east of Yemen's mainland and across the border in Dhofar, is the most widely spoken of the Modern South Arabian languages; Soqotri is its island cousin.

Which name did the Ottomans give their Yemeni province, headquartered first at Zabid after 1539?

Yemen Eyalet: the province was organised in 1539 with its seat at Zabid, moved inland in 1547, and was reconstituted after the 1872 reconquest as the Yemen Vilayet.

Which Portuguese commander attacked Yemen's main port in 1513 after seizing its largest island?

Afonso de Albuquerque seized the island in 1507 and led the failed assault on the port in 1513, part of Portugal's effort to wrest the Red Sea trade from the Mamluks; the Ottomans took the port in 1538.

Yemen's Queen Arwa sent missionaries who founded a lasting Indian community of which sect?

Ismaili: the Sulayhid queen, who ruled for half a century until 1138, ran the Fatimid-linked da'wa and sent missionaries to Gujarat, where the Bohra Ismaili community traces its origins to her mission.

Which brother of Saladin conquered Yemen for the Ayyubids in 1174?

Turan Shah, Saladin's elder brother, marched from Egypt in 1174 and took Zabid and the main southern port within months, founding Ayyubid rule that lasted in Yemen until 1229.

Which Sunni dynasty, ruling Yemen from Zabid and Taiz from 1229, claimed the caliphate after Baghdad fell?

Its scholar-kings wrote treatises on everything from astrology to agriculture and quarrelled with the Mamluks over who dressed the Kaaba.

The North Yemen civil war broke out on the death of Imam Ahmad bin Yahya in which year?

1962: Imam Ahmad died on 19 September and a week later officers led by al-Sallal proclaimed a republic, starting a civil war in which Egypt backed the republicans and the Saudis the royalists until 1970.

Yemen's first directly elected president won the 1999 vote with roughly what share?

96%: the president took 96.2% in September 1999 against a token challenger from his own party, then a more modest 77% in 2006; the prospect of his son inheriting office fuelled the 2011 uprising.

In which Gulf capital did Yemen's outgoing president sign the 2011 deal handing power to his deputy?

He flew to Riyadh on 23 November 2011 to sign the Gulf Co-operation Council plan; Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi took over in an uncontested vote.

Which country was the biggest buyer of Yemen's exports, mainly crude oil, in 2013?

China took the largest share of Yemen's exports in 2013, chiefly crude oil; the war that began in 2015 then roughly halved the economy.

If 'Yemen' comes from the Arabic yamīn, 'right hand', what would the name mean?

The South: with the right hand (yamīn) taken as the side of the rising sun, the land to the right of the Hejaz is the south; a rival theory derives the name from yumn, 'blessed'.

Which British-backed federation of sultanates collapsed when the National Liberation Front took power in 1967?

Federation of South Arabia: Britain grouped the protectorate's sultanates and emirates around its port colony into the federation in the early 1960s, but the National Liberation Front swept it aside at independence in November 1967.

Which Yemeni human rights activist won the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2011?

Tawakkol Karman, a journalist who led sit-ins in the capital's 'Change Square', shared the 2011 prize with Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, the first Arab woman to win it.

Into how many governorates is Yemen divided, in addition to the capital municipality?

Twenty-one: the newest governorate was carved out of the island archipelago in 2013; together they are subdivided into 333 districts, while the capital forms the separate municipality of Amanat Al-Asemah.

Alongside Saba, which three other major kingdoms ruled ancient South Arabia?

Hadhramaut, Qataban and Ma'in: the incense-trading states that shared ancient South Arabia with Saba, Ma'in in the Jawf, Qataban at Timna and Hadhramaut at Shabwa, had each shaken off Sabaean overlordship by the third century BC.

Which empire annexed Yemen after the death of the Aksumite viceroy Abraha around 570?

The Sassanid empire sent a force under Wahriz that ended Aksumite rule around 570 and installed Persian governors; the last of them, Badhan, embraced Islam in the Prophet's lifetime.

To which small town near Ibb did Queen Arwa move the Sulayhid seat of power?

Jibla: Arwa shifted the Sulayhid court there in the 1080s, building the Queen Arwa Mosque where she was buried after her death in 1138.

The Ottomans' 1911 treaty recognised Imam Yahya as autonomous ruler of which part of Yemen?

The Zaydi northern highlands: the 1911 Treaty of Daan let Imam Yahya govern the Zaydi areas under his own law while the Ottomans kept the Shafi'i lowlands until their 1918 withdrawal, after which he expanded his rule.