Yemen Map

Where Yemen lies

Yemen occupies the south-western corner of the Arabian Peninsula, with Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the east. Its coasts face the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait (only about 30 km wide, between Yemen and Djibouti), the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. The country covers about 528,000 square kilometers. With about 41.8 million people (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate), it is the most populous country on the Arabian Peninsula. No census has been held since 2004, so all population figures are estimates.

Who controls what (as of 2026)

Yemen has been divided by war since 2014, and the map shows international boundaries only, not front lines. Sanaa is the constitutional capital, but since September 2014 it has been held by the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah). The Houthis control most of the densely populated north-western highlands and much of the Red Sea coast, including the port of Hodeidah. The internationally recognised government has been led since April 2022 by the Presidential Leadership Council. It is based in Aden, which it treats as a temporary capital, and holds most of the south and east, including Marib, Hadramawt and Al-Mahra. A Saudi-led coalition intervened on the government's side in March 2015.

A UN-brokered truce in April 2022 brought a long lull in large-scale fighting. In December 2025, forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which seeks independence for the south, seized much of Hadramawt and Al-Mahra. Saudi-backed forces reversed those gains in January 2026, and the council's leader was removed from the Presidential Leadership Council. In September 2026, the Houthis and government forces resumed major fighting on several fronts, the most serious since 2022, and Houthi missiles and drones struck targets in Saudi Arabia. Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, which began in November 2023, have disrupted traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb. Two rival central banks operate, and the rial trades at different rates in Sanaa and Aden.

Highlands, Tihama and the Hadramawt

Along the Red Sea runs the Tihama, a hot, humid coastal plain. Behind it the land rises steeply into the western highlands, the highest ground in Arabia. Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb, west of Sanaa, reaches 3,666 meters, the highest point on the Arabian Peninsula. Monsoon-fed rains in spring and late summer water terraced fields of sorghum, coffee and qat; the area around Ibb is the wettest. This fertile corner gave rise to the Roman name Arabia Felix. Sanaa itself sits at about 2,250 meters and has a mild climate.

East of the highlands lie the Ramlat al-Sab'atayn sands and the southern edge of the Rub' al Khali. Further east, Wadi Hadramawt cuts a long valley through a barren limestone plateau. It holds Shibam, a walled town of mud-brick tower houses, many of them five storeys or more. Off the Horn of Africa lies the Socotra archipelago (UNESCO, 2008), where about 37% of plant species are found nowhere else, among them the umbrella-shaped dragon's blood tree.

Most governments currently advise against all travel to Yemen.

Cities

• Sanaa: the highland capital. Its old city of multi-storey rammed-earth and brick houses, decorated with white gypsum, has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years.
• Aden: a port built partly inside an extinct volcanic crater on the Gulf of Aden. It was a British colony from 1839 to 1967 and is now the seat of the recognised government.
• Taiz: a large highland city below Jabal Sabir. It has been split by front lines for much of the war.
• Hodeidah: the main Red Sea port, through which much of the north's food and fuel arrives.
• Mukalla: the capital of Hadramawt and the largest port on the Arabian Sea coast.
• Marib: once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Saba (Sheba). The remains of its great dam and temples were inscribed by UNESCO in 2023.
• Mocha: the Red Sea port that dominated the world coffee trade in the 16th to 18th centuries and gave its name to mocha coffee.

Yemen has five World Heritage Sites: Shibam, Old Sanaa, Zabid, Socotra and the Saba landmarks of Marib. All except Socotra are on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger.

Two Yemens and unification

Ancient Yemen was the land of Saba, Himyar and the frankincense caravan routes. Its modern borders come from two separate histories. In the north, a Zaydi imamate became independent when the Ottomans withdrew in 1918. It was overthrown in the 1962 revolution, which created the Yemen Arab Republic and set off a civil war that lasted until 1970. In the south, Britain held Aden from 1839 and ruled the hinterland as protectorates. The south became independent on 30 November 1967 and later became the Marxist People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. The two states unified on 22 May 1990, and a brief civil war in 1994 kept the country together. Yemen's border with Oman was agreed in 1992, and the one with Saudi Arabia in the Treaty of Jeddah in 2000.