Getting in and about Yemen | Safety and Health Issues in Yemen | Surviving in Yemen.
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen is a Middle Eastern country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. With a population of about 20 million people, Yemen is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North, the Red Sea to the West, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden to the South, and Oman to the east. Yemen's territory includes over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra, about 415 kilometres (260 miles) to the south of Yemen, off the coast of Somalia.
Yemen is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the world. Between the ninth century BC and the sixth century AD, it was part of the Sabaean, Awsanian, Minaean, Qatabanian, Hadhramawtian, Himyarite, and some other kingdoms, which controlled the lucrative spice trade. It was known to the Ancient Romans as Arabia Felix ("Lucky Arabia") because of the riches its trade generated. Augustus Caesar attempted to annex it, but the expedition failed. The Ethiopian Kingdom of Aksum annexed it by around 520, and it was subsequently taken by the Sassanids Persians around 570.
In the late sixth and early seventh centuries AD, many Sabaean people migrated out of the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib) and migrated to North Africa and northern part of the Arabian Peninsula. In the 7th century, Islamic caliphs began to exert control over the area. After this caliphate broke up, the former North Yemen came under control of Imams of various dynasties usually of the Zaidi sect, who established a theocratic political structure that survived until modern times. (Imam is a religious term. The Shi'ites apply it to the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, his sons Hassan and Hussein, and subsequent lineal descendants, whom they consider to have been divinely ordained unclassified successors of the prophet.)
Egyptian Sunni Caliphs occupied much of North Yemen throughout the eleventh century. By the sixteenth century and again in the nineteenth century, north Yemen was part of the Ottoman Empire, and in some periods its Imams exerted control over south Yemen. - Yemen economics
|
