Yemen
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| Official language | Arabic | |||||
| Capital | Sana'a | |||||
| President | Ali Abdullah Saleh | |||||
| Prime minister | Abdul Qadir Bajamal | |||||
| Area - Total |
Ranked 48th 527,970 km² | |||||
| Population - Total (2005) - Density |
Ranked 51st 20,727,063 37/km² | |||||
| Unification | 1990 | |||||
| Currency | Yemeni rial | |||||
| Time zone | Universal Time +3 | |||||
| National anthem | United Republic | |||||
| Internet TLD | .ye | |||||
| Country calling code | 967 | |||||
The Republic of Yemen is a country on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden on the south and the Red Sea on the west, and situated squarely in the tropics, about midway between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. It borders Oman to the northeast and Saudi Arabia to the north. Its territory includes the remote island of Socotra, about 350 km to the south off the Horn of Africa.
Because the border with the Saudi kingdom is simply a line on the map and not strictly defined as to where in the shifting desert sands it actually runs, the area of Yemen can only be estimated rather than exactly determined. It is somewhere in excess of 500,000 km², making it the second-largest nation on the Arabian Peninsula and about the size of Colorado and Wyoming combined. Yemen's population is nearing 21 million, ranking it second again on the peninsula and approaching that of Texas.
The name Yemen is not of certain origin but probably derives from the Arabic word meaning "south," signifying its location on the Arabian Peninsula. <<poorest area of penin.>>
Geography
The landscape of Yemen changes dramatically with the transition away from the shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden toward the great Rub al-Khali desert. The coastal area, often called the "hot land," is a desert-like plain 30 to 40 km wide. Reefs protect the coastline and there are many beautiful beaches.
The most spectacular geographical feature of Yemen is the western mountain slopes. Rising steeply to 2000 m, they are lined with tens of thousands of intricately fashioned terraces. These are part of an age-old but highly sophisticated system of water and soil management that enabled an agriculture-based society to flourish in an otherwise hostile environment. Deep wadis (valleys) divide the mountains and discharge heavy seasonal rainfall into the sea. The terraces are used to cultivate coffee and various grain crops.
Farther inland, the central highlands have several large basins, one of which encloses the capital, Sana'a, at an altitude of 2,350 m. They also boast the highest mountain on the peninsula, Nabi Shu'aib (3,650 m). Grapes, grain, fruits, and vegetables are grown and large-scale agriculture is practiced.
To the east, the mountains range mostly between 1000 m and 2000 m and are barren and rugged, but agriculture exists in the occasional wadi. In the area where the mountains meet the great desert, or Empty Quarter, only grass and shrubs grow and Bedouin graze cattle, but further east, signs of life cease and sand dunes rule the landscape.
The rest of the country, extending to the Omani border, is almost completely desert, with less than one percent of the land under cultivation. Settlements are very few and scattered, with vast areas separating them.
Yemen's easternmost and southermost points lie on the distant island of Socotra, which lies closer to Somalia than to Yemen and is nearly the size of Rhode Island. Like many remote islands, Socotra has some unique flora and fauna; its name likely derives from a Sanskrit phrase meaning "island of bliss."
Besides the two countries that Yemen borders, it has near neighbors in Djibouti and Eritrea, African nations across the narrow Bab el Mandeb strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.
History
Ancient kingdoms
Yemen was one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Middle East. Various ancient kingdoms developed between the 9th century B.C.E. and the 5th century C.E. in the rugged valleys between the central highlands and the desert. The famed Queen of Sheba is said to have ruled from what is presentday Yemen, though other locations make the same claim. The source of these kingdoms' wealth and power was the spice trade, which also moved incense and gold overland by camel caravan to Mediterranean markets. The land centering on Yemen was known as Arabia Felix ("Fortunate Arabia") by the Roman Empire, which believed it held fabulous riches. The Romans made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the area under Augustus, but later managed to break the Arabian control of the trade routes by finding sources for merchandise farther afield, mainly in India, and used waterways to get to them, which eventually brought the decline of the overland passage.
Arrival of Islam
Ethiopian Christians ruled the area for a short period in the 6th century, but they were expelled by a Persian army that remained in power until the arrival of Islam in 628, the same year Muhammad re-entered Mecca in triumph. The emergence of Islam sparked an unprecedented spiritual revival in the region, profoundly changing and reshaping Yemen. The Persian governor was among the first to embrace Islam. Missionaries sent by Muhammad built Yemen's first mosques. In the next two centuries, Yemenis constituted a large part of the Islamic forces that swept through the Middle East and westward to Spain. They tended to excel as architects, administrators, and merchants even when they settled down far from their homeland.
Distant caliphates ruled over Yemen at times; at other times local Shiite imamates held sway for centuries. The whole country, as it is known today, seldom remained united since different caliphs and imams often exerted control in the north of the region than in the southern reaches.
Colonial period
With the European discovery of the sea route around Africa to India, Yemen quickly gained strategic importance to the European powers, first the Portuguese, then the British. The interests of the Europeans frequently clashed with Islamic rulers, including the emerging superpower of the Middle East, the Ottoman Turks, who occupied Yemen for nearly a century, beginning in 1538, util they were expelled.
During this period, Yemen again experienced a prosperous period with the world's discovery of coffee, the cultivation of which some believe began in southern Arabia. Yemen held a global monopoly on coffee production and trade, and in time allowed British, Dutch, French, and later American trade missions and factories to be established on the Red Sea coast. Local coffee production declined steeply, though, after the colonial powers established plantations in other locations overseas.
Division into north and south
In 1729, a sultan precipitated the split between northern and southern Yemen that would last 260 years by gaining independence from the ruling imam. In an attempt to secure the trade route to India, the British occupied the port of Aden, on the gulf of the same name, in 1839. This prompted the Turks to safeguard their interests along the Red Sea by taking the northern part of Yemen in 1848. The border between the two regions of Yemen was fixed by the two powers in 1905.
The Turks withdrew with the collapse of the Ottomans at the end of [World War I]]. The xenophobic imams that succeeded in the north kept the area in civil war and dodged various assassination attempts even after rebel forces backed by Egypt drove it into exile in 1962.
Economy
At unification, both the YAR and the PDRY were struggling, underdeveloped economies. In the north, disruptions of civil war (1962-70) and frequent periods of drought had dealt severe blows to a previously prosperous agricultural sector. Coffee production, formerly the north's main export and principal form of foreign exchange, declined as the cultivation of qat increased. Low domestic industrial output and a lack of raw materials made the YAR dependent on a wide variety of imports. <<coffee: a crop that started its world career in Yemen during the 16th century.\/western slopes are the natural habitat of coffee>>
<<Quite fertile when irrigated, dates and cotton grow well in the coastal districts.>> <<Many wadis in the mountains are lush with papaya, mango and banana groves.>> <<large-scale agriculture is practiced in central highlands.>> << Plantations of citrus and water melon have been established in the eastern mountains.>>
Remittances from Yemenis working abroad and foreign aid paid for perennial trade deficits. Substantial Yemeni communities exist in many countries of the world, including Yemen's immediate neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, Indonesia, India, East Africa, and also the United Kingdom, and the United States. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union and China provided large-scale assistance.
In the south, pre-independence economic activity was overwhelmingly concentrated in the port city of Aden. The seaborne transit trade, which the port relied upon, collapsed with the closure of the Suez Canal and Britain's withdrawal from Aden in 1967.
Since unification, the government has worked to integrate two relatively disparate economic systems. However, severe shocks, including the return in 1990 of approximately 850,000 Yemenis from the Gulf states, a subsequent major reduction of aid flows, and internal political disputes culminating in the 1994 civil war hampered economic growth.
Since the conclusion of the war, the government entered into agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to institute an extremely successful structural adjustment program. Phase one of the IMF program included major financial and monetary reforms, including floating the currency, reducing the budget deficit, and cutting subsidies. Phase two will address structural issues such as civil service reform. The World Bank also is active in Yemen, with 22 active projects in 2004, including projects to improve governance in the public sector, water, and education. Since 1998, the government of Yemen has sought to implement World Bank economic and fiscal recommendations. In subsequent years, Yemen has lowered its debt burden through Paris Club agreements and restructuring U.S. foreign debt. In 2003, government reserves reached $5 billion.
Marib oil contains associated natural gas. Proven reserves of 10-13 trillion cubic feet (283-368 km³) could sustain a liquid natural gas (LNG) export project.
Foreign relations
The geography and ruling Imams of north Yemen kept the country isolated from foreign influence before 1962. The country's relations with Saudi Arabia were defined by the Taif Agreement of 1934, which delineated the northernmost part of the border between the two kingdoms and set the framework for commercial and other intercourse. The Taif Agreement has been renewed periodically in 20-year increments, and its validity was reaffirmed in 1995. Relations with the British colonial authorities in Aden and the south were usually tense.
The Soviet and Chinese Aid Missions established in 1958 and 1959 were the first important non-Muslim presence in north Yemen. Following the September 1962 revolution, the Yemen Arab Republic became closely allied with and heavily dependent upon Egypt. Saudi Arabia aided the royalists in their attempt to defeat the Republicans and did not recognize the Yemen Arab Republic until 1970. Subsequently, Saudi Arabia provided Yemen substantial budgetary and project support. At the same time, Saudi Arabia maintained direct contact with Yemeni tribes, which sometimes strained its official relations with the Yemeni Government. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis found employment in Saudi Arabia during the late 1970s and 1980s.
In February 1989, north Yemen joined Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt in forming the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), an organization created partly in response to the founding of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and intended to foster closer economic cooperation and integration among its members. After unification, the Republic of Yemen was accepted as a member of the ACC in place of its YAR predecessor. In the wake of the Gulf crisis, the ACC has remained inactive. Yemen is not a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
British authorities left southern Yemen in November 1967 in the wake of an intense terrorist campaign. The people's democratic Republic of Yemen, the successor to British colonial rule, had diplomatic relations with many nations, but its major links were with the Soviet Union and other Marxist countries. Relations between it and the conservative Arab states of the Arabian Peninsula were strained. There were military clashes with Saudi Arabia in 1969 and 1973, and the PDRY provided active support for the Dhofar rebellion against the Sultanate of Oman. The PDRY was the only Arab state to vote against admitting new Arab states from the Gulf area to the United Nations and the Arab League. The PDRY provided sanctuary and material support to various insurgent groups around the Middle East.
At least 850,000 Yemenis returned from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf at the time of the Gulf War.
Subsequent to the liberation of Kuwait, Yemen continued to maintain high-level contacts with Iraq. This hampered its efforts to rejoin the Arab mainstream and to mend fences with its immediate neighbors. In 1993, Yemen launched an unsuccessful diplomatic offensive to restore relations with its Gulf neighbors. Some of its aggrieved neighbors actively aided the south during the 1994 civil war. Since the end of that conflict, tangible progress has been made on the diplomatic front in restoring normal relations with Yemen's neighbors. The Omani-Yemeni border has been officially demarcated. In the summer of 2000, Yemen and Saudi Arabia signed an International Border Treaty settling a 50-year-old dispute over the location of the border between the two countries. Yemen settled its dispute with Eritrea over the Hanish Islands in 1998.
Demographics
Unlike other people of the Arabian Peninsula who have historically been nomads or semi-nomads, Yemenis are almost entirely sedentary and live in small villages and towns scattered throughout the highlands and coastal regions.
Yemenis are divided into two principal Islamic religious groups: the Shia Zaidi sect, found in the north and northwest, and the Shafa'i school of Sunni Muslims, found in the south and southeast. Yemenis are mainly of Semitic origin. Arabic is the official language, although English is increasingly understood in major cities. In the Mahra area (the extreme east), several non-Arabic languages are spoken. When the former states of north and south Yemen were established, most resident minority groups departed.
Socotra ... Africans on coast, Arabs inland
There was once a sizeable Jewish minority in Yemen with a distinct culture. This community is reduced to a few hundred individuals. See article on Yemenite Jews.
The country has one of the world's highest birth rates; the average Yemeni woman bears seven children. Although this is similar to the rate in Somalia to the south, it is roughly twice as high as that of Saudi Arabia and nearly three times as high as those in the more modernized Gulf Arab states.
Languages
While the national language is Arabic (spoken in several regional dialects), Yemen is one of the main homelands of the South Semitic family of languages, which includes the non-Arabic language of the ancient Sabaean Kingdom. Its modern Yemeni descendents are closely related to the modern Semitic languages of Ethiopia, including Amharic, the national language. However, only a small remnant of those languages exists in modern Yemen, notably on the island of Socotra and in the back hills of the Hadhramaut coastal region. Modern South Arabian languages spoken in Yemen include Mehri, with 70,643 speakers, Soqotri, with an estimated 43,000 speakers (2004 census) mainly on the island of Socotra, and Bathari (with an estimated total of only 200 speakers).
English is used as foreign language and is taught in public schools, starting from grade 7. Some private schools teach English, starting from grade 1, and use it as the main language of communication. The new generation is proud to learn English.
Culture
External links
Government
General information
- Arab Gateway - Yemen
- BBC News Country Profile - Yemen
- CIA World Factbook - Yemen
- Open Directory Project - Yemen directory category
- US State Department - Yemen includes Background Notes, Country Study and major reports
- Yahoo! - Yemen directory category
- South Arabian Semitic languages family tree from SIL's Ethnologue.
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