Yemen

III

People and Society

Most inhabitants of Yemen are ethnic Arabs, although there exist relatively small communities of Africans, South Asians, and Europeans. People of different regions of Yemen are culturally distinct. Many of the inhabitants of Hadhramaut reflect the cultural and genetic influence of Southeast Asia with which the district has historic commercial ties. Those Yemenis living in the coastal lowlands reflect the racial and cultural influences of nearby Africa. Cosmopolitan Aden, which Britain ruled as part of India from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, still bears traces of the culture of the Indian subcontinent.

A significant minority of the population is organized into tribes, and for many Yemenis tribal identity is of primary importance. This is particularly true in the northern highlands, where the sheikhs of several individual tribes and two large tribal confederations, the Hashid and Bakil, can still mobilize large numbers in defense of tribal interests. Virtually all of the inhabitants of northern Yemen are sedentary, meaning they have fixed homes and do not move from place to place like nomads. A slightly smaller percentage is sedentary in the south. A small number of nomadic pastoralists can be found on the edge of the desert far to the east. Although Yemen has traditionally been characterized by a stratified social system marked by castelike groups at the top and bottom, this structure is breaking down as economic opportunities become available and new social ideas come to prevail.

A

Population Characteristics

The total population of Yemen is 22,211,743 (2007 estimate). The average population density is 42 persons per sq km (109 per sq mi). Although more than one and a half times its size in land area, the former South Yemen had less than one-third the population of the former North Yemen when they merged in 1990. The population of southern Yemen is concentrated in and around its urban areas and the Hadhramaut region. By contrast, the far larger population of northern Yemen is scattered over a great many towns, villages, and hamlets; the combined populations of its principal urban centers comprise just a fraction of the north’s total population.

B

Principal Cities and Towns

Yemen has four major cities. Sana‘a, located in the northern highlands, is Yemen’s political capital and largest city (population, 2003 estimate, 1,469,072). Aden (562,000), on the Gulf of Aden coast 180 km (110 mi) east of the Bab el Mandeb, was the capital of South Yemen and is the unified country’s economic hub and largest port. Al Ḩudaydah (155,110), in the Tihāmah, is the second largest port. Ta‘izz, (178,043), in the highlands above Aden, is an important commercial and light industrial center. Among Yemen’s larger towns are Şa‘dah, far to the north; Dhamār, Yarim, and Ibb, in the middle region; Al Mukallā, on the southern coast; and in Hadhramaut, the towns of Shibām, Say‘ūn, and Tarīm.

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C

Language

Nearly all Yemenis speak Arabic. However, the country’s extremely rugged terrain, widely separated population centers, and less-developed means of transportation and communications have produced several different dialects. The most notable difference exists between the dialect of the northern Yemeni highlands and that of Aden and the southern part of the former North Yemen.

D

Religion

The indigenous people of Yemen are almost all Muslims, with small resident communities of Christians, Jews, and Hindus. The Christian population that existed in Yemen in pre-Islamic times virtually disappeared during the Islamic era, which began in the 7th century ad. All but a few thousand members of the formerly significant Jewish community, which may have resided continuously in Yemen since pre-Islamic times, emigrated to Israel shortly after its creation in 1948. Yemen’s Muslim population has suffered from divisiveness. Through centuries of persecution, the once large and powerful Ismaili Shia community (see Ismailis) was reduced to an insignificant minority residing in the mountains, although this number has increased somewhat in recent years.

A long-standing division remains between Yemen’s two principal religious groups, the Zaydi Shia Muslims and the Shafi’i Sunni Muslims (see Shia Islam; Sunni Islam). The Zaydis of the northern highlands dominated politics and cultural life in northern Yemen for centuries. With the unification of Yemen and the addition of the south’s almost totally Shafi’i population, the numerical balance shifted dramatically away from the Zaydis.

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