Aden

Aden IPA: (Arabic: عدن ) is a city in Yemen, 105 miles (170 kilometers) East of Bab-el-Mandeb. more...

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Its ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a low isthmus. This harbour, Front Bay, was first used by the ancient Kingdom of Awsan between the 5th and 7th centuries BC. The modern harbour is on the other side of the peninsula. Aden now has a population of about 590,000 and is located at 12.779444° N 45.03667° E.

Aden consists of a number of small towns: Crater, the original port city, the industrial city known as Little Aden with its large oil refinery, and Madinat ash-Sha'b, the centre of government. Two suburbs, Khormaksar and Sheikh Othman, lie north of Crater, the old city, with the international airport situated between them. This is the former RAF Khormaksar. As Aden encloses the eastern side of the Port, Little Aden forms its mirror image, enclosing it on the western side. Little Aden became the site of the oil refinery and Tanker port. Both these last were operated by British Petroleum.

Aden was the capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen until that country's unification with the Yemen Arab Republic when it was declared a free trade zone. It gives its name to the Gulf of Aden.

History

Antiquity

The port's convenient position on the sea route between India and Europe has made Aden desirable to rulers who sought to possess it at various times throughout history. Known as Arabian Eudaemon in the 1st century BC, it was a transshipping point for the Red Sea trade, but fell on hard times when new shipping practices by-passed it and made the daring direct crossing to India in the 1st century AD, according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The same work describes Aden as 'a village by the shore', which would well describe the town of Crater while it was still little-developed. There is no mention of fortification but at this stage, Aden was more an island than a peninsula as the isthmus (a tombolo) was not then so developed as it is today. It is believed that Noah's Ark was constructed in Aden.

Medieval

Although the pre-Islamic civilization of Himyar was capable of building large structures, there seems to have been little fortification at this stage. Fortifications at Mareb and other places in Yemen and the Hadhramaut make it clear that it and the Sabean culture were well capable of it. Thus watch towers, since destroyed, are possible. However, the Arab historians Ibn al Mojawir and Abu Makhramah attribute the first fortification of Aden to Beni Zuree'a. The aim seems to have been twofold: to keep hostile forces out and to maintain revenue by controlling the movement of goods--preventing smuggling. In its original form, some of this work was relatively feeble, but after 1175 AD, rebuilding in a more solid form began.

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