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
Climate
Mostly desert; hot and humid along west coast; temperate in western mountains affected by seasonal monsoon; extraordinarily hot dry harsh desert in east
Natural Hazards
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
Note:
Strategic location on Bab el Mandeb the strait linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden one of world's most active shipping lanes
North Yemen became independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. The British who had set up a protectorate area around the southern port of Aden in the 19th century withdrew in 1967 from what became South Yemen. Three years later the southern government adopted a Marxist orientation. The massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from the south to the north contributed to two decades of hostility between the states. The two countries were formally unified as the Republic of Yemen in 1990. A southern secessionist movement in 1994 was quickly subdued. In 2000 Saudi Arabia and Yemen agreed to a delimitation of their border. Read more on Wikipedia
