Yemen

Sana’a — the capital of Yemen (527,970km² at the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, population 33 million — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a pre-Islamic history of 2,500+ years, the land of the Queen of Sheba according to Ethiopian and Yemeni tradition — devastated by a Saudi-led coalition war that began in March 2015 in response to the Houthi takeover of Sana’a and has killed an estimated 150,000–250,000 people, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis). All governments advise against all travel. This content is for informational purposes for when conditions improve.

💡 The Yemeni civil war (began 2014–2015 when the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah) — a Zaidi Shia movement from northern Yemen backed by Iran — took control of Sana’a, prompting the Saudi-led military coalition intervention in March 2015 — has produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis: approximately 80% of the 33 million population dependent on humanitarian aid, 20 million food insecure, cholera epidemic affecting 2.5+ million people, and an infrastructure destroyed by years of airstrikes and ground fighting.

Old Sana’a (UNESCO World Heritage — one of the most distinctive urban landscapes in the world, with 6,000+ tower houses built from rammed earth and baked brick, some dating to the 2nd century CE, rising 5–9 storeys with the characteristic stained glass “qamariyya” windows that fill each room with coloured light at dawn — a complete medieval Islamic city preserved in its original form, the finest example of pre-modern Yemeni domestic architecture accessible in the world).

💡 Yemeni tower house architecture (the characteristic multi-storey rammed earth and stone buildings of Sana’a and the Yemeni highlands — built from a volcanic rock called “qudad” (a dark basalt) with decorative white gypsum friezes, each tower house a self-contained vertical community housing a single extended family across 5–9 floors — is the most distinctive domestic vernacular architecture in the Arabian Peninsula, with no parallel in the Middle East. The Sana’a skyline, with its organic tower clusters rising above the city walls, is one of the great human landscapes of the world.

Socotra Island (UNESCO World Heritage — a remote island in the Arabian Sea, 240km east of the Horn of Africa, belonging to Yemen — the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean”, with the most extraordinary endemic flora of any island in the world: the dragon blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari — an umbrella-shaped tree producing deep red resin, found only on Socotra, with 50,000+ trees on the Haggeher Mountains), 300+ endemic plant species and the extraordinary arid coastal landscape) — accessible by direct flights from Abu Dhabi and Muscat when conditions allow.

💡 The dragon blood tree (Dracaena cinnabari — a tree unique to Socotra, growing at 300–1500m altitude, with an alien-looking flat-topped umbrella canopy, producing a blood-red sap (dragon’s blood resin) used since antiquity as a varnish, dye and medicine, mentioned by ancient Greek, Roman and Arab sources — is the defining image of Socotra. The trees grow slowly (40+ years to maturity) and are found nowhere else on earth; the Haggeher Plateau of Socotra is the most dramatically alien landscape in the Arabian region.

Shibam Hadramawt (UNESCO World Heritage — the “Manhattan of the desert” — a 16th-century mudbrick skyscraper city in the Wadi Hadramawt canyon, with 500 tower houses of 5–11 storeys built from unfired mud brick, the tallest mudbrick buildings in the world — rising from a flat canyon floor like a pre-Columbian urban vision, the most extraordinary vernacular urban landscape in the Arabian Peninsula) accessible from Mukalla on the Gulf of Aden coast.

💡 Shibam Hadramawt (a walled city of approximately 7,000 people living in tower houses that rise 8–11 storeys from the canyon floor — built primarily in the 16th century to protect the city from Bedouin raids by concentrating the population in defensible vertical space — is considered the earliest example of urban planning based on vertical construction in human history. The tower houses (beit, meaning “house”) must be replastered annually with mud render to prevent erosion by the rare but violent rainfall of the Hadramawt.

Marib (the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Saba (Sheba) — the source of the Old South Arabian civilisation that built the Great Marib Dam (the most significant pre-Islamic engineering achievement in Arabia, first built approximately 700 BCE, maintaining agricultural irrigation for 1,000 years until its final collapse in 575 CE) and traded frankincense, myrrh and spices across the ancient world — with the ruins of the Bar’an Temple (the Moon Temple), the Awam Temple (the Bilqis Throne) and the ancient dam embankments accessible from Marib city).

💡 The Marib Dam (built approximately 700 BCE, rebuilt and expanded multiple times, a massive earth dam 600m long controlling the Wadi Adhanah flood flow and irrigating 96km² of agricultural land — fed the most densely populated and agriculturally productive area of ancient Arabia for over 1,000 years before the final dam collapse in 575 CE triggered a massive migration of Sabaean population across the Arabian Peninsula, mentioned in the Quran as the people of Saba who abandoned the dam). The collapse of the dam is one of the most consequential engineering failures in ancient history.

Aden (the former British colonial capital of South Yemen, an ancient natural harbour at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula on the Red Sea — one of the most strategically important ports in the world, the “Gibraltar of the East” — with the extraordinary crater city built inside a collapsed volcanic caldera, the Cisterns of Tawila (ancient water storage hewn from rock, 53 cisterns capable of storing 50 million litres), the colonial British architecture and the remarkable natural harbour used continuously since 1000 BCE).

💡 Aden’s volcanic crater geography (the port of Aden is built inside the collapsed crater of an ancient volcano, forming a natural harbour of extraordinary security and depth — used continuously as a trading port since at least 1000 BCE, under Portuguese, Ottoman and finally British control (1839–1967) as the primary coaling and resupply station on the Suez Canal route between Britain and India — is the most dramatically situated port city in the Arabian region, with the crater walls rising on three sides above the harbour to 400m.

A final reflection on Yemen, the “Arabia Felix” (“Happy Arabia”) of the Romans — the most fertile and wealthy region of the Arabian Peninsula in the ancient world, producer of the frankincense and myrrh that filled every Roman, Greek and Egyptian temple, the land of the Queen of Sheba, the source of the civilisation that produced the Marib Dam and the Shibam skyscrapers — now the site of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, carrying an extraordinary heritage that waits for peace to be seen. Fly from Sana’a International Airport (SAH) or Aden (ADE) when conditions permit.

💡 Yemeni frankincense and myrrh (Boswellia sacra and Commiphora myrrha — the resins that were the most valuable commodities in the ancient world, traded from the incense-producing trees of southern Arabia (mainly Yemen’s Dhofar region and neighbouring Oman) across the Incense Road to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome — made pre-Islamic Arabia the wealthiest region in the ancient world. The frankincense trade route from Yemen to the Mediterranean (3,000km by camel caravan) was the primary reason Nabataean Petra, Marib and dozens of other cities existed.