About Yemen

Political system in Yemen
Republican and democratic, the people as the source and the owner of power, they practice directly through referendum and the general elections, as they exercised indirectly throughout the legislative, executive and judicial authorities or throughout elected local councils.

The political system in Yemen is based on the political and party pluralism, peaceful transition powers through the general elections. Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula with a republican regime.

Republican President
The President of the Republic of Yemen is the head of state. He is elected directly by the people in competitive elections with the participation of a number of candidates, are required to win the President to obtain the majority vote of the electorate.

Local Authority
Local authority represents one form of exercising the rule system in Yemen. Yemen is divided administratively to 21 provinces, including Amanat al-Asma and Rayma provinces which established in 2004. Yemeni provinces are divided to 333 districts, which also divided to is divided by (2200) towns and zones, as well as (36986) villages and (91489) neighbors. With the number of local poll station is (5620).

Air outlets
Sana’a International airport, Aden International airport, Taiz International airport, Hodeida International airport, Mukkalla International airport, Seiyun International airport.

Land outlets
Haradh, al-Bakea, Aleen, Shehen, Serfet, al-Wadea.

Sea outlets
Aden seaport, Muka seaport, Hodeida seaport, Mukkalla seaport, Nashton seaport, Keshen Saehot seaport, al-Dhaba seaport, Beer Ali seaport, Balhaf seaport, Radhom seaport, Dhabab seaport, al-Khokha seaport, al-Saleef seaport, Rais Isa seaport, al-Lahia seaport, Medi seaport.

Terrain
Yemen is characterized by the diversity of aspects of the surface and therefore has been divided into five major geographic regions.

The coastal plain Territory
It extends intermittently alongside of Yemen coast, where being cut by mountains and hills, which link directly to the sea water in many places, therefore the coastal plain territory in Yemen includes the following plains; (Tehama plain, Abyan Tebn plain, Mefeah Ahwar plain, eastern coastal plain, which is located within Mahra province). The Coastal Plain territory: is known as a hot climate throughout the year with little rainfalls ranging between 50-100 mm per year, but it is an important agricultural territory, especially Tehama Plain due to the large valleys that penetrate this territory and pour the floods resulting from rainfall on the highlands.

Mountain Highlands Territory
It extends from Yemen far border limits the north to the far south. This territory have been subjected to tectonic movements resulted in major and minor breaks each equivalent to the Red Sea and some of the other parallels the Gulf of Aden. It also resulted in dry hills, including Basin Mountains which calls bottoms and fields. This territory is rich with surface valleys that divided it into blocks with aspects of the steep and a mountainous wall overlooking the plain of Tehama cliffs and steep slopes. The mountains of this territory are considered, the height average in 2000, and ascend peaks of more than 3500 m, and reach the highest peak in to 3666 m in Jabel al-Nabi Shuaib. The line of water in these mountains across a number of valleys east and west, south, the most important of these valleys the following; Mor, Haredh, Zabid, Seham, and Rasean valleys, most of those valleys draining into the red sea, while Tebn, Bana, and Hadhramouth talleys are draining into the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

Mountainous Basins Territory
This territory has mountainous plains and basins in the highlands, mostly located in the eastern section of water line division, which extends from the far north to far south, the most important of these mountainous Basins as the following; Yarim, Dhamar, Maeber, Sana’a basin, Amran, and Sa’ada bottoms.

Plateau Areas Territory
It is located to the east and north of the highlands and parallel to them, which is extended towards the Empty Quarter, and begin to decline gradually. It is also descended toward the north and east, most of the surfaces of these territories consist from rocky desert, pass by some valleys, especially the Hadhramout and Wadi valleys.

Desert Territory
It is a sandy territory almost devoid of vegetation except in parts of streams of rainwater that runs through after descending from mountainous areas adjacent to the territory, ranging Height of the surface between 500-1000 m above sea level, and descended without interruption towards the north-east to the center of the Empty Quarter. The climate here is severe with high heat and temperature range, scarce rainfall and low humidity.

Yemeni Islands
Yemeni islands spread along the Yemen territorial waters, many of these islands have their topography, climate and environment. Most of these islands are located in the Red Sea, including Kamaran, which considers the largest inhabited island in the Red Sea, in addition to Hanish archipelago islands, as well as Meon island, which has a strategic location in the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, the southern gateway of the Red Sea. The most important islands in the Arabian Sea is Socotra archipelago, which considers the largest island in this archipelago, which includes along with Socotra island, Samhan, Darsa, and Abdul Kawari islands. Socotra Island is characterized by multitude of its biodiversity since its plants are estimated at 680 species.

Climate
Yemen overlooks two seas, the Red Sea and the Arab Sea. However, Yemen’s climate didn’t benefit a lot from the marine characteristics significantly only in raising the air humidity in the coasts. Influence of these two seas in modifying the republic’s climate features is very limited. Rather it is confined to humidity and modifying the wind features while their effect in the air instability is limited. Rain falls in two seasons. The first season during the spring season (March- April), and the second season in the summer (July- August) during which rains fall greater than the spring season. The amount of rainfall varies greatly from a place to a place. The highest amount of annual rainfall is on the south west highlands as in Ibb, Taiz, Aldhale’a and Yareem. The amount of rainfall ranges between 600-1500m annually. The amount of rainfalls in the western coastal plain become less as in Hodeida, Mokha, despite the exposure to the monsoon south-west from the Indian Ocean crossing the Red Sea as a result of the absence of a factor raising the wind humid However, the average rainfall annual increases with the altitude of 50 mm on the coast to about 100 0 mm on the slopes of the mountains facing the Red Sea.

The same can be said about the country’s southern and eastern coasts as has been said about the western coasts regarding the rainfall amounts that reach around 50mm per annual as in Aden, Alfayoush, Alkud and Alrayan. This can be attributed to many factors, the main one of which is that the direction of the humid wind movement runs parallel with the coast without penetrating into the internal parts; therefore, the impact would be very small and hence the rainfall are of no economic significance whatsoever.

As for temperature, the eastern and southern plains have such high temperature degrees that it reaches 42°m and goes down to 25°m. Temperature goes down gradually toward higher elevations because of the height factor to reach 33°m as a maximum and 20°m as a minimum. In winter the lesser temperature on the highlands reaches closer to Zero degree and in Dhamar Governorate, in the winter, the temperature -12°m was recorded in 1986. As for humidity, it is high on the coastal plains up to more than 80% whereas it goes down toward the internal parts where it reaches its minimum rate in the desert areas around 15%.