Sanaa

Sanaa is the capital of Yemen, a country in the south of Arabia. In 2004 it was the biggest city in the country.

The city is high up, in a valley between mountains.

Sanaa is the capital of Yemen. UNESCO says its Old City sits in a mountain valley about 2,200 meters above the sea, and that people have lived there for more than 2,500 years. Universalis says the name means 'fortified place'.

Yemen's census of 16 December 2004 counted 1,707,531 people in Sanaa, the most of any Yemeni city. Aden came next, with 588,938.

Yemen's Central Statistical Organisation counted 1,707,531 people in Sanaa (with ar-Rawdah) at the census of 16 December 2004, according to City Population. The 1975 census had found about 134,600, so the city grew more than twelve times over in about 30 years. The capital's own governorate, Amanat al-Asimah, had 1,747,834 people in 2004.

Universalis places the city in a basin at 2,300 meters on the western foothills of Jebel Nuqum and calls it, for many centuries, the economic, political and religious heart of Yemen's highlands.

Look at the tall houses! They are made of brown earth and brick, and they are decorated with white shapes around the windows.

Some houses have many floors, like towers.

The photo, taken from a rooftop, looks over Sanaa's tall houses toward a bare brown mountain. UNESCO describes the Old City's tower houses, built of rammed earth and burnt brick on stone ground floors and decorated with geometric patterns of fired brick and white gypsum.

UNESCO counts 103 mosques, 14 hammams (bathhouses) and over 6,000 houses in the Old City. Universalis says a massive wall, 6 to 9 meters high, surrounds the old town and has many gates.

UNESCO's statement describes 'an extraordinary density' of rammed earth and burnt brick towers rising several stories above stone ground floors, with minarets on the skyline and green bustans (gardens) between the houses, bath buildings and caravanserais. It notes that the houses themselves are of relatively recent construction, with a traditional structure.

The most famous gate, Universalis says, is Bab al-Yemen, renamed the Gate of Freedom after the 1962 revolution. UNESCO inscribed the Old City in 1986 under criteria (iv), (v) and (vi).

In the old town there are lots of little markets, where people sell many kinds of things.

There are also green gardens tucked between the tall houses.

Universalis says the markets of the old town begin at Bab al-Yemen and run north past the Great Mosque. The quarter called Suq al-Milh, the 'salt market', is made of many small markets offering a wide range of goods.

UNESCO describes spacious green gardens, called bustans, scattered between the closely packed houses, mosques, bath buildings and caravanserais.

UNESCO's 2011 authenticity statement counts the open spaces (bustans, maqashe and sarah'at) as part of the Old City's urban environment and notes a very high percentage of home ownership among its traditional ways of life.

The 2011 statement also warned that new building was eroding the character of some quarters and that the bustans were gradually being built over. Universalis calls Sanaa, for many centuries, the economic, political and religious heart of Yemen's highlands.