Yemen
The Country of the Week
Quick Facts
- Capital
- Sanaa
- Population
- 34,505,496 (2025 est.)
- Area
- 527,968 sq km
- Government
- in transition
- Religions
- Muslim 99.1% (official; virtually all are citizens, an estimated 65% are Sunni and 35% are Shia), other 0.9% (includes Jewish, Baha'i, Hindu, and Christian; many are refugees or temporary foreign residents) (2020 est.)
- Ethnic Groups
- predominantly Arab; but also Afro-Arab, South Asian, European
- Currency
- Yemeni rials (YER)
- Life Expectancy
- 68.2 years (2024 est.)
- Internet Domain
- .ye
- Climate
- mostly desert; hot and humid along west coast; temperate in western mountains affected by seasonal monsoon; extraordinarily hot, dry, harsh desert in east
- Terrain
- narrow coastal plain backed by flat-topped hills and rugged mountains; dissected upland desert plains in center slope into the desert interior of the Arabian Peninsula
- Natural Resources
- petroleum, fish, rock salt, marble; small deposits of coal, gold, lead, nickel, and copper; fertile soil in west
- Major Exports
- gold, fish, scrap iron, shellfish, industrial acids/oils/alcohols (2023)
Source: CIA World Factbook (public domain)
Overview
The Kingdom of Yemen (colloquially known as North Yemen) became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and in 1962 became the Yemen Arab Republic.