|RNational holiday:|N Proclamation of the republic, September 26.
|RNature and climate:|N Narrow coastal strip towards the Indian Ocean and a highland plateau at about 2000 m.a.s.l. in the interior. In the north a part of the Rub' al Khali desert.
In the west, towards the Red Sea is the Asir Mountains, with a highest peak, Jabal en Nabi Shu'ayb, reaching 3760 m.a.s.l.
Vegetation is very sparse, with cocospalms along the coasts.
Average temperature in January 26°C and in July 32°C by the coast. Much cooler at high elevations in the interior where frost can appear in the winter months.
Percipitation about 40 mm.
|RPeople:|N Mainly Arabs and some Indians, Somalis and Europeans.
|REconomy:|N 64% of the labour force is occupied in agriculture, 25% in services and 11% in industry and trade.
The western mountainchain has been cultivated in terraces several thousand years. Many of the old terraces and artificial watercanals are still in use. Most important crops are grains, maize, fruits, vegetables, dates, tobacco and cotton. Coffee used to be the most important crop and also grown for export, but the coffee-area has diminished in favour of the narcotic plant qat.
There are good fishing both in the Red Sea and in the Indian Ocean.
Aden was formerly an important freeport and support point for international shipping as well as a stronghold for the British fleet.
Yemen have many minerals but only salt and oil is extracted. Oil-extraction started in the 1980:ies and soon became the most important source of income. There are oil-refineries.
More than 400 000 Yemenis work abroad and the money they send home provides the greatest part of Yemen's non-oil foreign earnings.
|RHistory:|N Todays Yemen was formerly a part of the ancient Sheba - or Saba - realm, known for its wealth. In this wealth was based on the strategic location. Yemen then dominated the trade with spices, gold and other luxury goods from eastern Africa and India to the Middle East.
Yemen was in 628 incorporated with the rest of Arabia as a result of the Islamic expansion. In the 10th century the imams of the Zaidi sect became kings of the independent Yemen and they ruled Yemen until 1962.
Aden was at this time the most important port of Arabia and in the 15th century the Portuguese started activity in the area soon followed by the British. By the mid-16th century Yemen came under the Ottoman Empire but in 1839 Aden was made a British Crown Colony and the region around Aden became a British protectorate, South Yemen. The rest of Yemen remained in the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I when it became an independent kingdom, North Yemen.
When the king of North Yemen died in 1962 a republican army seized power which started a civil war between republicans and royalists which lasted until 1970.
In South Yemen the struggle for independence started in 1963 with two rival groups. In 1963 the British left and South Yemen became independent the same year. In 1969 a socialist regime seized power.
During the 1970:ies and 1980:ies there have been several border skirmishes between North Yemen and South Yemen, but in 1972 the two nations agreed on a unification. In spite of new border skirmishes a new agreement of unification was made in 1979. in the 1980:ies the relations between the two nations improved and finally in May 1990 the two Yemeni countries merged into the Republic of Yemen.
A civil war, mainly between the north and south, raged the country in 1994 and 1995.
