Greater Yemen

Yemen إقليم اليمن
Map of Greater Yemen
Countries	Yemen Saudi Arabia Oman

Yemen Region(Arabic:إقليم اليمن,romanized:Eglîm el-Yemen) also known asSouth Arabiais ageographicterm denoting territories of historic South Arabia which included All lands between theGulf of Omanin the east and theRed Sea.

The term 'Yaman' appears to have originated at the time ofIslamand has, in Arabic usage, covered a wide range of the west and south of the Arabian Peninsula, from the region south ofMeccaandMedinato what is nowOman.In pre-Islamic times the settled south-west Arabian region was known named after the Kingdoms,SabaandHimyarestablished there.

In the 20th century, ImamYahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din,King of theMutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen(North Yemen) attempted to unify Yemen but only managed to consolidate his control inUpper Yemen,Lower Yemen,Marib,and LowerTihamah.He expressed his claim toAdenand theAden Protectoratein treaties, such as in theItalo-Yemeni Treatyof 1926. He was unable to dislodge theBritishfrom the Aden hinterland orHadhramaut.British control of Aden was also challenged by his successorKingAhmad bin Yahyawho did not recognise British suzerainty in South Arabia and also had ambitions of creating a unified Greater Yemen. In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, Yemen was involved in a series of border skirmishes along the disputedViolet Line,a1913 Anglo-Ottoman demarcationthat served to separate Yemen from the Aden Protectorate.

After Aden achieved independence from Britain in the 1960s, it united with North Yemen in 1990 to form theRepublic of Yemen,which saw the majority of Greater Yemen ruled as a single polity for the first time in nearly two centuries, but theSouthern Movementhas since 1994 sought the secession ofsouth Yemen.

See also

• Saudi Arabia–Yemen border
• South Arabia

Sources

• Negotiating the Saudi-Yemeni international boundary
• History of Yemen
• Yemen: About The Yemen - Part 1
• Yemen's Historical Capital