🇾🇪 Yemen
Sana'a
Sanaa (Arabic: صنعاء) is the capital of Yemen and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world — a city of 3.6 million on a high plateau at 2,250 m altitude in the centre of the Arabian Peninsula's western highlands, one of the highest capital cities in the world. IMPORTANT SAFETY ADVISORY: Yemen has been in a devastating civil war since 2015, with Sanaa under Houthi control since 2014. As of 2024, travel to Yemen is not possible or recommended for foreign nationals — most governments issue "do not travel" advisories for the entire country. This content is provided for historical and aspirational purposes, to be read when peace returns. The Old City of Sanaa (UNESCO World Heritage since 1986, declared "World Heritage in Danger" in 2015 due to Saudi coalition airstrikes damaging the historic fabric) is one of the most architecturally distinctive urban environments on Earth — the 2,500-year-old walled city (the oldest walled city in the Arab world) has over 14,000 tower houses (the Yemeni skyscraper tradition: multi-storey mud-brick and stone tower houses rising 5-9 storeys, each story decorated with elaborate geometric alabaster window panels that glow warm gold at sunset — the most distinctive vernacular architecture in the Arabian Peninsula), 103 mosques, 14 hammam bath-houses and 6,000 houses with the medieval urban fabric almost entirely intact. The Yemeni coffee (qishr — made from the dried coffee husks/silver skin rather than the beans, spiced with ginger and sometimes cardamom; a tradition pre-dating the European coffee trade; the Haraaz mountains near Sanaa produce some of the finest arabica coffee in the world on ancient terraced fields), the mafraj (the top-floor reception room of every tower house, where men gather to chew qat leaves and discuss poetry and politics in the afternoon), and the Suq al-Milh (the great spice market) are what await when Yemen is at peace.