Yemen Trivia
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47 free Yemen trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Yemen trivia quiz covers the ancient and the modern: the Sabaean kingdom of biblical Sheba and its Great Dam at Marib, the Himyarites, the coffee monopoly exported through Mocha, the Ottoman and British partitions, and the two Yemens that finally merged in 1990. It also covers the crisis years — Ali Abdullah Saleh's fall, the Houthi takeover, the Saudi-led intervention and the famine and cholera that followed. Along the way you'll meet Yemen's landmarks and culture: the tower houses of Sanaa's Old City, the mud skyscrapers of Shibam, the dragon's blood trees of Socotra, Arabia's highest peak, the jambiya dagger, khat and saltah, and the strait called the Gate of Grief. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the constitutional capital and largest city of Yemen?
Sanaa
Sanaa, on a highland plateau about 2,300 metres up, is Yemen's constitutional capital and largest city; the Houthis took control of it in September 2014, forcing the government to relocate.
Q 02Which two countries share a land border with Yemen?
Saudi Arabia and Oman
Saudi Arabia and Oman: the Saudi frontier runs along the north and the Omani border closes the east, while Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia lie across the water; Yemen is the peninsula's second-largest country.
Q 03What is the legendary queen who visited Solomon called in Arabic tradition?
Bilqis
Bilqis is the queen's name in Arabic and Islamic tradition, though the Quran leaves her unnamed; Makeda is the Ethiopian form, and the 12th-century Yemeni ruler Arwa al-Sulayhi was styled 'Bilqis the Younger'.
Q 04The Sabaeans' Great Dam, an ancient engineering marvel, stood near which city, their capital?
Marib
Marib: the dam irrigated the oasis around the Sabaean capital for over a millennium; the Quran's Surah Saba recalls its flood, and the final breach came around 575.
Q 05Which Judaism-influenced kingdom succeeded Saba around AD 275 and unified most of Yemen?
Himyarite
Himyarite: from its capital Zafar the kingdom absorbed Saba around 275 and ruled most of Yemen; its king Dhu Nuwas embraced Judaism before Aksum invaded from Ethiopia in 525.
Q 06Through which Red Sea port did Yemen ship its coffee to Europe in the 17th century?
Mocha
Mocha, on Yemen's Red Sea coast, shipped the country's coffee to Europe from the 1600s, giving its name both to a coffee variety and to the chocolate-flavoured drink; Yemen then dominated world coffee supply.
Q 07The earliest reports of coffee drinking come from the mid-15th century among which group in Yemen?
Sufi mystics
Sufi mystics in Yemen's monasteries were drinking coffee by the mid-1400s to stay awake for night devotions, and the habit reached Mecca and Cairo within a century.
Q 08South Yemen, independent from 1967, held what distinction in the Middle East?
The region's only communist state
The region's only communist state: the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, run by the Marxist Yemeni Socialist Party from 1978, was the Arab world's sole Soviet-aligned Marxist state until unification.
Q 09In which year did North and South Yemen unite into the modern Republic of Yemen?
1990
1990: the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen merged on 22 May 1990; a civil war between the former halves followed in 1994.
Q 10Who was the first president of unified Yemen, in power until the Arab Spring forced him out in 2012?
Ali Abdullah Saleh
Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of North Yemen from 1978, became the united republic's first president at unification and handed power to his deputy Hadi in February 2012; he likened ruling Yemen to 'dancing on the heads of snakes'.
Q 11How did Yemen's long-time strongman, ousted in 2012, die in December 2017?
Killed by his erstwhile Houthi allies
Killed by his erstwhile Houthi allies: days after the ex-president broke with the Houthis and called for an uprising against them, they killed him on 4 December 2017 as he tried to leave the capital.
Q 12The Houthi movement, which seized the capital in 2014, follows which branch of Islam?
Zaydi Shia
Zaydi Shia: the Houthis, formally Ansar Allah, emerged in the late twentieth century from a revivalist movement among Yemen's Zaydi community, whose imams had ruled parts of the country on and off for a millennium.
Q 13Which country launched 'Operation Decisive Storm' against the Houthis in March 2015?
Q 21Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb, the highest mountain in Yemen and in all of Arabia, is roughly how tall?
3,666 m
3,666 m: Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb rises southwest of the capital in the Sarawat range, the roof of the Arabian Peninsula; the surrounding western highlands catch the heaviest rain in Arabia, feeding terraced farms.
Q 22What is the Tihamah?
The hot, flat Red Sea coastal plain
The hot, flat Red Sea coastal plain: the Tihamah runs along Yemen's west coast from the northern frontier to the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, with humid heat, lagoons and wadis that mostly dry out before reaching the sea.
Q 23The strait between Yemen and Djibouti, connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, has a name meaning what?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia began airstrikes on 26 March 2015 at the head of a mostly Arab coalition, after President Hadi fled abroad; the Houthis were accused of receiving Iranian support.
Q 14Which three colours, in horizontal bands, make up Yemen's national flag?
Red, white and black
Red, white and black: adopted at unification, the plain tricolour uses the pan-Arab colours of Egypt, Syria and Iraq but carries no stars, eagle or inscription.
Q 15Roughly how many Yemenis did the UN say needed humanitarian aid in 2019?
About 24 million
About 24 million: the UN put the number needing assistance at 24.1 million in 2019, some 80% of the population, calling Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Q 16Which Yemeni island, closer to Africa than Arabia, has about a third of its plant species found nowhere else?
Socotra
About 90% of its reptiles and 95% of its land snails are also endemic; the Portuguese held a fort there in the early 1500s.
Q 17The umbrella-shaped dragon's blood tree of Yemen's islands is named for what?
Its dark red resin
Its dark red resin, called dragon's blood, oozes from cut bark and has been traded since antiquity as dye, varnish and medicine; the umbrella crown channels fog moisture to the roots.
Q 18The walled town of Shibam in eastern Yemen is famous for what?
Tower blocks built of mudbrick
Tower blocks built of mudbrick: about 500 of them, five to eleven storeys and up to 30 metres high, crowd the walled 16th-century town nicknamed the 'Manhattan of the Desert'.
Q 19The Old City of Yemen's capital, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been inhabited for roughly how long?
More than 2,500 years
More than 2,500 years: UNESCO's 1986 listing notes the Old City has been settled for over two and a half millennia; its Great Mosque dates from the 7th century and the Salt Market long traded spices, raisins, copper and silver.
Q 20Zabid, a former capital and centre of Islamic learning, was placed on which UNESCO list in 2000?
World Heritage in Danger
World Heritage in Danger: UNESCO moved Zabid to the danger list in 2000, seven years after inscription, citing the replacement of about 40% of its historic houses with concrete and the decay of its souk.
Gate of Grief
Gate of Grief: Bab-el-Mandeb, often rendered 'Gate of Tears', is said to be named for the perils of its currents or for an ancient earthquake legend; it is one of the world's key shipping chokepoints.
Q 24Which stimulant leaf, chewed across Yemen, takes up to 40% of the capital basin's water?
Khat
Khat: the leaves of Catha edulis release the stimulant cathinone when chewed, and afternoon khat sessions are a social institution across Yemen, where the thirsty crop dominates irrigated farmland.
Q 25What is a jambiya?
A curved dagger worn at the belt
A curved dagger worn at the belt: the jambiya is part of traditional male dress in Yemen, and demand for its prized rhinoceros-horn hilts helped drive the 1970s and 1980s collapse in black rhino numbers.
Q 26Saltah, Yemen's national dish, is a meat stew topped with a froth made from which spice?
Fenugreek
Fenugreek: the whipped froth, hulba in Arabic, is spooned over the stew with sahawiq, a fresh relish of chillies, tomatoes and garlic, and the dish is eaten with flatbread at lunchtime.
Q 27What is Yemen's most popular sport?
Football
Football: the country's favourite game by far, Yemen's national team reached its first AFC Asian Cup finals in 2019, losing all three group games in the UAE.
Q 28What is the currency of Yemen?
Rial
Rial: the Yemeni rial is issued by the Central Bank of Yemen; the dinar once used in the People's Democratic Republic was phased out after unification.
Q 29What was Operation Magic Carpet?
The airlift of Yemenite Jews to Israel
The airlift of Yemenite Jews to Israel: between June 1949 and September 1950 nearly 50,000 were flown to the new state in an operation financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, all but ending a community two millennia old.
Q 30Which Modern South Arabian language is the most widely spoken, centred on Yemen's far east?
Mehri
Mehri, spoken in the far east of Yemen's mainland and across the border in Dhofar, is the most widely spoken of the Modern South Arabian languages; Soqotri is its island cousin.