The Republic of Yemen is divided into twenty-one governorates (muhafazah) and one municipality (amanah):
The governorates are subdivided into 333 districts (muderiah), which are subdivided into 1,996 sub-districts, and then into 40,793 villages and 88,817 sub villages (as of 2013).
South Yemen, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), abbreviated to Democratic Yemen, was a country in South Arabia that existed in what is now southeast Yemen from 1967 until its unification with the Yemen Arab Republic in 1990. The sole communist state in the Middle East and the Arab world, it comprised the southern and eastern governorates of the present-day Republic of Yemen, including the islands of Perim, Kamaran, and the Socotra Archipelago. It bordered the Yemen Arab Republic to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Arabian Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Aden to the south. Its capital and largest city was Aden.
South Yemen's origins can be traced to 1874 with the creation of the British Colony of Aden and the Aden Protectorate, which consisted of two-thirds of present-day Yemen. Prior to 1937, what was to become the Colony of Aden had been governed as a part of British India, originally as the Aden Settlement subordinate to the Bombay Presidency and then as a Chief Commissioner's province. After the establishments of the Protectorate and Federation of South Arabia amidst rising Pan-Arab and anti-colonial sentiment, an armed rebellion began in 1963 that was led by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against British colonial rule. The Federation and Protectorate of South Arabia were overthrown to become the People's Republic of Southern Yemen (PRSY) on 30 November 1967.
The Socotra Archipelago (Arabic: أرخبيل سقطرى ʾArḫabīl Suquṭrā), officially the Socotra Archipelago Governorate (Arabic: محافظة أرخبيل سقطرى Muḥāfaẓat ʾArḫabīl Suquṭrā), abbreviated to Socotra Governorate (Arabic: محافظة سقطرى Muḥāfaẓat Suquṭrā), is one of the governorates of Yemen. It includes a number of islands in the Indian Ocean south of mainland Yemen, the largest of which is Socotra.
Al Jawf (Arabic: الجوف Al-Jawf) is a governorate of Yemen. Its capital is Al Hazm.
As of April 2020, after the Houthi forces' 2020 offensive, nearly all the governorate is under Houthi control, except for Khabb wa ash Sha'af which is under the control of Al-Qaeda.
Hadhramaut (Arabic: حَضْرَمَوْت, romanized: Ḥaḍramawt ; Hadrami Arabic: حَضْرَمُوت, romanized: Ḥaḍramūt ) is a geographic region in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula which includes the Yemeni governorates of Hadhramaut, Shabwah and Mahrah, Dhofar in southwestern Oman, and Sharurah in the Najran Province of Saudi Arabia, and sometimes the Aden, Abyan and Lahij governorates of Yemen at a more stretched historical definition. The region's people are known as the Hadharem. They formerly spoke Hadramautic, an old South Arabian language, but they now predominantly speak the Hadhrami dialect of Arabic.
Though the origins of the name are unknown, the name Hadhramaut is traditionally explained as a compound word meaning "death has come" or "court of death," derived either from the Arabic ḥaḍara ("he came") plus mawt ("death"), a folk nickname for Amer bin Qahtan, the region's legendary first settler, or from the Biblical Hebrew ḥaṣar ("court" or "dwelling") plus māweṯ ("death") as seen in Hazarmaveth. The name is of ancient origin and is reflected in the name of the modern-day Yemeni governorate of Hadhramaut.
Sanaa (Arabic: صَنْعَاء Ṣanʿāʾ), also spelled San'a' or Sana, is a governorate of Yemen. The capital is Sana'a, which is also the national capital. However, the city of Sana'a is not part of the governorate but instead forms the separate governorate of Amanat Al-Asemah. The Governorate covers an area of 13,850 km (5,350 sq mi). As of 2004, the population was 2,918,379 inhabitants. Within this place is Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb or Jabal Hadhur, the highest mountain in the nation and the Arabian Peninsula.
Taiz (Arabic: تَعِزّ, romanized: Taʿizz) is a governorate of Yemen. The governorate's capital Taiz, the third-largest city in Yemen, is among the most important commercial centres in the country, owing to its proximity to farmland, the Red Sea port of Mokha and Taiz International Airport.
Lahij (Arabic: لحج Laḥǧ) is a governorate of Yemen.