South Yemen

South Yemen was the only Marxist-Leninist state the Arab world has known. The People's Democratic Republic of Yemen grew out of more than a century of British rule over the port of Aden and a patchwork of sultanates in its hinterland, and from 1967 to 1990 it was a close partner of the Soviet Union on the shipping lanes between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It nationalized land, expanded schooling and women's legal rights, and lived through repeated power struggles inside its ruling party. In 1990 it merged with North Yemen, yet the idea of a separate south never went away, and southern separatism remains one of the fault lines of Yemen's long war.

The state covered about 337,000 square kilometers along the southern rim of the Arabian Peninsula, facing the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Aden, on a volcanic peninsula with one of the finest natural harbors in the region, lies near the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. To the east stretches a dry, stony plateau cut by the great Wadi Hadramawt, whose mud-brick tower town of Shibam is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and beyond it the Mahra region bordering Oman. The island of Socotra, with its dragon's blood trees, lies offshore, and the sands of the Empty Quarter formed the northern frontier. The whole territory is now part of the Republic of Yemen, in governorates including Aden, Lahij, Abyan, Shabwa, Hadramawt, al-Mahra, and Socotra.

Britain seized Aden in 1839 and later bound the inland sultanates through protection treaties. An armed campaign led by the National Liberation Front pushed the British out, and the People's Republic of Southern Yemen became independent on November 30, 1967, taking the name People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1970. Its ruling Yemeni Socialist Party was torn by a bloody conflict in Aden in January 1986. As Soviet support faded, the south united with the Yemen Arab Republic on May 22, 1990, and a southern attempt to secede was defeated in the 1994 civil war. The Southern Transitional Council took up the cause after 2017. After its forces advanced into Hadramawt and al-Mahra in December 2025 and were pushed back by Saudi-backed forces, its secretary-general announced its dissolution in January 2026, a step other council officials disputed.

• Arabian Sea
  The monsoon-driven sea linking Arabia, Africa, and India coast on
• The British Empire
  The largest empire in history, covering about a quarter of the worlds land by 1920 formerly part of
• The Arabian Peninsula
  The largest peninsula on Earth, and it has no rivers located in
• Red Sea
  A young ocean in the making, splitting Africa from Arabia located near
• Oman
  Frankincense coast and mountains at Arabia's edge neighbor
• Saudi Arabia
  The desert kingdom and birthplace of Islam neighbor
• Yemen
  Arabia Felix, a land of high mountains and deep crisis now part of
• Yemen
  Arabia Felix, a land of high mountains and deep crisis today part of