I noticed on a world map there appears to be a Yemen and a Yemen Aden with no border (even if in dispute) between the two. Are they one and the same country, or what?
The CIA World Factbook lists among Yemen’s former names “former: Yemen Arab Republic [Yemen (Sanaa) or North Yemen] and People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen [Yemen (Aden) or South Yemen].” They are evidently a single entity now, although the TV news just tonight claimed that the Yemeni government exerts very little control outside the city of Sanaa.
The generalized notions we have of nation/states don’t all comfortably apply to Yemen.
Back in the Fifties, Yemen was an Emirate with capital at San’a (now Sanaa); Aden was a colony (Aden city and environs) and protectorate (the long strip stretching to Oman). Aden got its independence, turned Socialist, and adopted a name based on Yemen. The two countries were at odds, then coalesced into a single nation. The Emir was thrown out in the north, but has supporters in the hinterlands. There’s apparently a civil war going on, not between north and south nor between Sunni and Shi’a, nor yet between ideologue ‘democrats’ and the Royalists, but with elements of each involved in a rather inchoate mess. Sorting out who supports whom and who holds what is apparently like writing in the sand.
The long messy decline of Aden into chaos, not helped by the new British government’s announcement that we would leave by 1968, later brought forward to 1967, (at which point all sources of information about the insurgents promptly dried up, as nobody wanted to risk their lives helping a colonial power that was already leaving), has dismal parallels with our recent wars of choice. We ended up pratically fighting our way down to the docks, and pushing Land Rovers off the dockside to make sure the locals didn’t get them.
How old is this map of yours? I’m a geography nut, I pay attention to any map that comes my way, and I haven’t seen one made since 1991 (Yemeni unification was in May 1990, I believe, but some were a little slow to get the news) that shows two Yemens, one labelled Yemen Aden.
Yes, geopolitics in the middle east doesn’t conform to Western views, but, for purposes of cartography, which does use Western views, one Yemen under the name Yemen and pictured here has always been the norm since unification.
In my youth, the World Book encyclopedias that I grew up with referred to the countries as Yemen (Sana) and Yemen (Aden).
But yeah, if your map still shows two Yemens, you need to get to the map store and buy a new one. There’s a bunch of new countries where the USSR used to be too…
Don’t forget we also had
Congo (Brazzaville) and Congo (Leopoldville), until Leopoldville became Kinshasa, so then we had Congo (Brazzaville) and Congo (Kinshasa). Then Congo (Kinshasa) became Zaïre. Which solved the problem till the mid 90s, when Zaïre became Congo (Kinshasa) again. Now once again we’re stuck with Congo (Brazzaville) and Congo (Kinshasa)
Interesting, we have, or have had, two Koreas that are almost always referred to as North or South, not by their capitals, two Germanies that were almost always referred to as East or West, never by their capitals, and two Yemens that were often North and South, but reference by capitals wasn’t unusual either.
So why are the African nations never West Congo and East Congo, but they’re always either by their capitals, or Republic of Congo and Democractic Republic of Congo (again, confusing because DR Congo used to be Republic of Congo as well, from what I can remember.) To make things even more confusing, more and more I’ve heard both countries called just “Congo”, with no distinguishing whatsoever! That is a big pet peeve of mine! Eschew obfuscation!
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea confuse me as well. As does French Guiana and Guyana, which used to be British Guiana, and which together were sometimes called ‘the Guianas’ along with Suriname, which used to be Dutch Guiana.
I’d say they should keep it simple like we do, but actually I think the definitions of what’s a nation, state or island over here in Britain is even more confusing…
United States (Washington)
United States (Mexico City)
United States (Brasilia)
Yemen has been united for a umber of years, but South Yemen (Aden) used to be the Arab world’s only Marxist state.
There is certainly Yemeni government control in the area west and slightly north of Sana’a (Kawkaban, Mahwit, Hajjah etc), in the areas around Marib, Saada and the far East, not so much.
I was there about two years ago and it was fairly stable and safe, but changeable.
Fox News’s ultimate enemy…