ABSTRACT
The Ottoman Empire seized most of Yemen in the sixteenth century, but was driven out in 1636 by a successful resistance movement. A century later, a southern sultan split the country in two by establishing two independent states. Repressive governmental policies led to a coup in 1962 that ended the Rassid Dynasty, an Islamic regime that had ruled northern Yemen for centuries. The Yemen Arab Republic was born. Five years later, a rival Marxist state, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, was formed in the southern region. This division lasted until 1990, when the former Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) merged with the Marxist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen), giving birth to the modern state. This merger made Sana, the former North Yemen capital, Yemen’s political capital. Aden, the former South Yemen capital, became its economic center.
