Someone asked a simple question about Yemen’s size, and a researcher traced it back to its source. The question was “What is the size of Yemen?” The answer, it turns out, depends on who you ask.
The 555,000 km² Figure
The researcher began by checking the number that first commenter mentioned. It was 555,000 square kilometers, and it came from the Central Statistical Office of Yemen’s 1991 statistical yearbook, the first issued after the country unified. That book put Yemen’s northern border at the 20th parallel north, which stretches into the Rub-Al-Khali desert.
When the researcher drew those borders on Google Maps, the area came to 456,000 square kilometers. The missing 100,000 square kilometers is the size of a quarter of the country.
The Border Stretch
Before 2000, the border with Saudi Arabia was not clearly marked. The researcher suggests someone drew the northern line up to the 20th parallel for propaganda effect, making the country look bigger.
The 527,968 km² Number
Wikipedia and many other sources say Yemen’s size is 527,968 square kilometers. That figure comes from the CIA World Factbook, the World Bank database, and the United Nations website. It also appears in old geography books.
But that number combines two earlier figures for North and South Yemen, and both were wrong. The researcher dug through the CIA Factbook’s history and found the earliest editions where the number appeared, in 1991, exactly a year after Yemen’s unification.
North Yemen’s Mistake
The 1964 edition of the Statesman Yearbook described North Yemen as 75,000 square miles, or 195,000 square kilometers. That number came from the 1904 New International Encyclopedia, which described the size of the Yemeni Vilayet, a province of the Ottoman Empire.
Independent North Yemen was half the size of that vilayet. But every book until 1990 kept repeating the older figure without checking it.
South Yemen’s Overcount
Every source up to 1976 showed South Yemen as 287,000 square kilometers. Then something changed. The CIA Factbook changed it to 332,000 in 1986. Encyclopedia Britannica did it in 1981. The United Nations did it in 1977.
The researcher found the source: a 1976 World Bank report about South Yemen’s economy. On page 51, a table showed South Yemen’s governorates and their areas, summing to 338,100 square kilometers. The seventh item, Thamud, was not a governorate — it was part of the Fifth Province. Its area had been counted twice.
Since then, every source has repeated that figure without checking.
The Combined Error
For two unrelated reasons, the sizes of both North Yemen and South Yemen were exaggerated. During unification, sources simply added them together to create a new, even more inaccurate number.
What the Numbers Mean
The researcher points out several consequences:
- Yemen’s population density is not 65 people per square kilometer. It is 75.
- Yemen is not the 49th biggest UN member state. It is the 54th.
- Yemen is not “slightly larger” than twice the size of Wyoming as the CIA claims. It is smaller.
Fixing the Mistake
The researcher admits wishing they had made the whole thing up. Instead, they found a century of institutional repetition.
They want someone to make this story famous so these institutions will finally correct the error.
Key Facts Box
- Yemen’s claimed size: 555,000 square kilometers (1991 statistical yearbook)
- Yemen’s actual mapped size: 456,000 square kilometers (Google Maps)
- North Yemen’s stated size: 195,000 square kilometers (1964 Statesman Yearbook)
- South Yemen’s stated size: 287,000 square kilometers (pre-1976)
- Corrected South Yemen size: 288,000 square kilometers (Google Earth)
- CIA World Factbook first edition with combined figure: 1991
- Thamud overcount: 338,100 square kilometers (World Bank report)
The story is a reminder that statistics travel in packs, and that a century-old mistake can become a shared truth. The researcher’s work shows how easy it is to repeat an error, and how hard it is to fix it.
Source material: “What is the size of Yemen? (2024),” theborys.substack.com.
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