Countries That Start With The Letter Y
When you get to the end of the alphabet, there are fewer and fewer countries for each letter. And the same is true for the letter Y.
There is only one country starting with the letter Y and that is Yemen.
Yemen
Population: 29,825,968 (as of 2022 – source World Bank)
Languages: Arabic
Religion: Islam
Total Area: 455,000 sq km / 175,677 sq mi
Capital: Sanaa
Yemen is strategically located on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Given its position at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, it was historically very important in regional trade and communication. Not surprisingly, Yemen is a country that speaks a variety of Arabic dialects and is for the majority a Muslim land.
Modern Yemen as we know it was only formed in 1990 with the merging of North and South Yemen (or the Yemen Arab Republic with the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen). And today they are undergoing a long and damaging civil war that has lasted since 2014. It has caused widespread poverty and famine in a country that was not rich, to begin with.
Despite its location, Yemen actually has some relatively fertile areas and is now known as the first country to commercially cultivate coffee. In fact, before coffee was widely available, Yemen was the first and only place to grow it.
