Yemen
POPULATION 18,078,000
SUNNI MUSLIM 65 percent
ZAYDI SHIA MUSLIM 34 percent
ISMAILI SHIA MUSLIM LESS THAN 1 percent
JEWISH LESS THAN 1 percent
CHRISTIAN LESS THAN 1 percent
HINDU LESS THAN 1 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Yemen is located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea and the Strait of Bab al-Mandab to the west, the Gulf of Aden to the south, and Oman to the east. Islam has been the dominating religion of the area since the seventh century C.E.
The British arrived in the port city of Aden in 1839 and established a protectorate over a large part of the hinterland. By 1873 Yemen had been formally divided into two internationally recognized territories—North Yemen, which had again become part of the Ottoman Empire, and British-controlled South Yemen. After World War I North Yemen gained international recognition as an independent nation-state ruled by the Zaydi imam Yahya Hamid al-Din. Growing demands for reforms (such as a constitutional government) and the fall of the Egyptian and Iraqi monarchies foreshadowed the imamate's decline, however. In 1962 the last imam was ousted in an Egyptian-sponsored coup d'état, and North Yemen was renamed the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR).
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