The most interesting facts about Yemen, from the origins of mocha coffee to a rare tree that grew from the blood of a dragon injured while fighting an elephant.
Fast facts
Official name: Republic of Yemen
Capital city: Sana’a
Population: 32,140,443
Area: 527,968 sq km
Major languages: Modern Standard Arabic, Socotri, Mahri
Time zone: UTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time)
Interesting facts about Yemen
1. Yemen has ancient roots located at the crossroads of Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
2. For more than 2,000 years from around 1200 BC, Yemen was home to a series of powerful and wealthy city-states and empires. Their prosperity was largely due to the production of frankincense and myrrh, two of the most valued products of the ancient world.
3. According to legend, Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, was founded by Shem, one of the three sons of Noah from the flood story in the Old Testament book of the Bible.
4. The UNESCO-listed Old City of Sana’a has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years and was a major centre for Islam during the 7th and 8th centuries. The site comprises 103 mosques, 14 hammams and over 6,000 houses, all built before the 11th century.
5. Yemen was once divided into north and south with the north ruled by the Ottoman Empire and the south ruled by the British.
6. In 1918, the Ottoman Empire dissolved and North Yemen gained independence.
7. In 1967, Britain withdrew from South Yemen and became the People’s Republic of Yemen. In 1969, a communist coup renamed the south the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
8. The People’s Republic of South Yemen was the Arab world’s first and only Marxist state.
9. Decades of instability and conflict followed with the two Yemens regularly clashing as well as an eight-year civil war in North Yemen from 1962-70.
10. In 1990, the two Yemens became united as the Republic of Yemen with Ali Abdallah Saleh as president.
11. Even since unification in 1990, Yemen has been plagued by uprisings, civil war, protests, terrorism and separatist movements.
12. Yemen remains one of the world’s most terrorism-affected countries, ranking 22nd on the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) in 2025.
13. Yemen lays claim to the Queen of Sheba, the legendary ancient ruler of the kingdom of Saba which is supposedly located in present-day Yemen.
14. Yemenis are famous for chewing a mild amphetamine-like drug called khat, a regional practice that dates back thousands of years. It is estimated that up to 90% of adult men chew khat several times a day and possibly 50% of adult women.
15. The UNESCO-listed 16th-century Old Walled City of Shibam is known as “the Manhattan of the desert” due to its impressive tower-like structures and rectangular grid plan of streets and squares.
16. The national symbol of Yemen is the golden eagle.
17. One of the more fun facts about Yemen is that mocha coffee derived its name from the country. The port city of Mocha was once a vast coffee marketplace and is considered the birthplace of the coffee trade.
18. In ancient times, Yemen was known in Latin as Arabia Felix which means “Happy, or Flourishing, Arabia” due to its fertile land.
19. Yemen was the pioneering nation in the Arabian Peninsula to grant voting rights to women.
20. Yemen’s flag is horizontally striped red, white and black. The red, white, and black stripes are part of the pan-Arab colors, which have historically been associated with major Arab dynasties and later became symbols of Arab unity and independence.
See how Yemen’s flag compares to other Asian flags.
21. Much of Yemen is covered by the Arabian Desert which at 2,300,000 sq km (900,000 sq mi) is the largest desert in Asia and the second largest on Earth. Only the Sahara in Africa is bigger.
22. The Rubʿ al-Khali – or “Empty Quarter”– is the largest uninterrupted sand desert in the world and lies partly within Yemen.
23. Yemen has long been ranked the Middle East’s poorest country and the Arab World’s second-poorest when measured by GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP).
24. Yemen is the only state in the Arabian Peninsula to have a purely republican form of government (no monarchy as head of state).
25. The Dar al-Hajar in Yemen is a former royal palace that was carved out of a single column of rock. The palace, built in the 1920s, is now a museum and tourist attraction.
26. Yemen is also made up of over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra.
27. The island is part of the UNESCO-listed Socotra Archipelago. The site has a rich biodiversity with 37% of its 825 plant species, 90% of its reptile species and 95% of its land snail species not occurring anywhere else in the world.
28. The island is home to an unusual species of tree called the dragon’s blood tree. Local legends suggest the trees either grew from the blood of two brothers fighting to the death or from the blood of a dragon that was injured fighting an elephant.
29. The Socotra Archipelago also supports 192 bird species, 253 species of reef-building corals, 730 species of coastal fish and 300 species of crab, lobster and shrimp.
30. According to Lonely Planet, Socotra is the only safe place to visit in Yemen as UAE and Saudi Arabian troops have been stationed there. However, in June 2020 the Southern Transitional Council seized control of the island.
31. Yemen ranks 173rd on the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), tied with Libya, Eritrea, and Equatorial Guinea. Years of war and weak governance have left it among the world’s most corrupt nations.
32. Yemen is among the hungriest countries in the world. In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, it suffered an alarming hunger level of 39.9%. It was not included in the 2025 index due to insufficient data, but based on previous trends, it would likely rank near the top of the list.
33. Yemen is also the world’s second-least peaceful country according to the 2023 Global Peace Index (GPI) report produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace.
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Caitriona Maria is an education writer and owner of The Facts Institute. With seven years of teaching experience and a background in educational content, she specialises in creating clear reference resources about countries, geography and global topics.