Yemen History

Yemen History

The Republic of Yemen (hereinafter, Yemen) was formed on 22 May 1990 with the merger of the Arab Republic of Yemen (YAR, or North Yemen) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, or South Yemen).  YAR, an imamat (or kingdom), which was under Ottoman rule until independence after World War I, was very insular and maintained its traditional lifestyle and social structure until the

1980s.  It became a republic after a civil war from 1962 to 1970, which also saw the participation of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  The traditional and conservative society of the YAR contrasted sharply with that of the PDRY, which gradually became a British protectorate after the capture of Aden in 1843, and after the British left in 1967, following the Declaration of Independence, adopted Marxism as its political  adopted as a system.  The merger of the two separate countries can be traced to the economic pressures of the collapse of the Soviet

Union and the late 1980s, as well as an informal shared sense of ethnicity and nationality between the peoples of the two countries.  A short but difficult civil war was fought for several weeks in 1994, mainly along the YAR-PDRY lines and on each side, over issues of political power in the unified state and the disbursement of public funds and funds from the newly discovered oil fields.  Led by the elite.  .

Yemen is located in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula;  Its Arabic name al-Yaman is derived from the old word al-Yaman meaning "south" (of Mecca, the center of Islamic religion).  Modern Yemen shares a border with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the north, the Sultanate of Oman to the east, the Red Sea to the west, and the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea to the south.  The country includes the island of Sukutra in the Arabian Sea and several smaller islands in the Red Sea.

The size of Yemen is 532,000 square kilometers.  The western and northern parts of the country (formerly YAR) are very mountainous, with the highest peaks reaching over 3,600 m and many peaks over 3,000 m, apart from thin stretches of coastline.  The sandy western coastline (Tihama) is extremely hot and humid.  To the east are the PDRY more mountains, which descend into a rocky plain in the central eastern part of the country before merging into one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world, the Rub' Kshar ("Empty Quarter").  There are also patches of relatively fertile valleys in the east.

The Yemeni people are Arabic in origin, although some remote tribes have their own languages ​​and cultures that differentiate them.  The country's proximity to Africa and its position on sea routes from India and Africa has given it a diverse cultural mix;  Its foods and architecture are markedly different from those of neighboring Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, for example.  According to the 1994 census, the country's population is 

approximately 15.4 million, of whom about three-quarters are located in the former YAR.  The people are mainly rural;  They often live in small villages or settlements and generally identify with a larger tribal group, although the urban population is steadily increasing.  There are large-scale Yemeni communities abroad, including in the Middle East, the UK and the United States.

Modern Yemen is a very poor country, with a GDP per capita of US$750 in 1999.  The country has few export industries other than oil, although there is potential in light manufacturing, shipping and tourism.  Very little inward investment, mostly confined to the oil sector, is a result of poor infrastructure and perceived political instability.  In 1996 the government initiated a series of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-sponsored economic reforms, which have continued to the present day.