Aden & the South

Aden's harbour, sheltered by the volcanic peninsula of Jabal Shamsan, has drawn traders since antiquity, when it served ships sailing between India, Egypt and East Africa. The Cisterns of Tawila, cut into the ravine above Crater to catch the rare floods, are of uncertain but old date, and in the Middle Ages Aden was one of the great ports of the Indian Ocean before it declined under later rulers.

In 1839 the British East India Company captured Aden to serve as a coaling station on the route to India. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made it one of the busiest ports in the world, and Aden grew into a cosmopolitan city of Arabs, Indians, Somalis, Jews and Europeans, ruled from Bombay until 1937 and then as a Crown colony. Around it, Britain signed treaties with the sultans and sheikhs of the hinterland — among them the Abdali of Lahij and the Fadhli of Abyan — to form the Aden Protectorate.

The armed struggle against British rule began in the Radfan mountains in October 1963, and the Aden Emergency ended with British withdrawal in 1967. Aden became capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, whose ruling party tore itself apart in a brief civil war fought in the city in January 1986. After unification in 1990 and the southern defeat of 1994, resentment of northern rule grew into the Southern Movement. Houthi forces reached Aden in 2015 but were driven out, and the city has since served as the temporary seat of the internationally recognised government. From 2017 the Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-backed movement seeking southern independence, held Aden and much of the south, until Saudi-backed government forces drove it out in January 2026; some of its leaders then announced its dissolution, which others rejected.

The south has a distinct identity shaped by Aden's port life, British rule and the socialist years. The PDRY secularised personal law, banned child marriage and polygamy, and swept away the old sultans, and rallies for southern independence have been a recurring sight in Aden.

Aden itself was long one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Arabia, with churches, a Zoroastrian temple and Parsi and Jewish communities. Most of those minorities have gone, but the city's food still carries Indian traces. As elsewhere in the south, most people are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i school.

Lahij is famous across Yemen for its songs. Prince Ahmad Fadl al-Qumindan, poet, musician and member of the Abdali ruling family, shaped the Lahji song tradition in the early 20th century, and his songs remain popular across the region. Jasmine is part of Lahij's identity, and Lahji jasmine is sold in cities across Yemen. The mountain districts of Radfan and Ad Dali are more tribal and conservative, and proud of their role in the revolt of 1963.

Aden has a population of around a million, spread through districts divided by ridges and bays: Crater, the old town; Ma'alla, the modern port; Tawahi around the old Steamer Point; Khormaksar on the isthmus with the airport and university; and Sheikh Othman and Al Mansoura on the mainland. Little Aden, across the bay, holds the oil refinery built in the 1950s. Lahij town, Zinjibar, Jaar and Ad Dali are the main towns inland.

The economy depends on the port, the refinery, government salaries, small trade, fishing and money from relatives in the Gulf. The collapse of the rial in the government-held areas has made food and fuel expensive, public salaries lose value quickly, and summer electricity cuts in the humid heat are a recurring cause of protest.

Evenings are the busiest time in Aden, when families walk the corniche and sit in tea shops once the heat breaks. Qat sessions fill the afternoons, as elsewhere. Abyan's farming delta and its fishing towns have suffered from years of fighting with al-Qaeda.

Aden's cooking is among the most outward-looking in Yemen, with Indian, Somali and Persian Gulf influences layered over the Yemeni base. Zurbian is spiced rice cooked with lamb or chicken, potatoes and saffron, nicknamed the Yemeni biryani. Fish is eaten widely: grilled, fried or cooked in the clay tannur oven and eaten with flatbread and sahawiq, a hot sauce of fresh herbs, chilli and garlic.

Street food includes mutabbaq, a folded stuffed flatbread. Adeni tea, shai adani, is black tea brewed with milk and cardamom and served very sweet, and it is poured all day in the city's cafés. Sweets include bint al-sahn, a sweet bread dipped in honey and butter, and halwa sold by the slab.

Inland, Lahij is known for its farms and its jasmine, and the Ad Dali highlands follow the mountain diet of flatbread, fenugreek hulba and meat stews. Yemeni honey, prized as a delicacy, is sold in markets across the region.

Aden's crater town is the region's centrepiece: the old town of Crater sits on the floor of an extinct volcano, surrounded by bare ridges that rise to the peaks of Jabal Shamsan. Above it, in a ravine, the Cisterns of Tawila step down the rock in a series of connected tanks. Crater also keeps the Aden Minaret, and on Sira Island, above the old harbour, stands the Sira Fortress.

Around the peninsula, the harbour at Tawahi, once Steamer Point, keeps colonial buildings, the old Landing Pier and the Little Ben clock tower, while Ma'alla's waterfront avenue runs along the inner harbour. Beaches such as Gold Beach and Elephant Beach lie around the peninsula, and Little Aden forms the far arm of the bay.

Inland, Lahij's old sultanate capital, Al-Hawtah, marks the Abdali heritage, and the dramatic Radfan mountains to the north are remembered as the starting point of the independence war; Ad Dali's highlands lie beyond. East of Aden, the southern coast towards Abyan runs past Zinjibar and the Abyan delta to Shuqra, the old Fadhli capital on the Gulf of Aden.