Sanaa

Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation of 2,300 metres (7,500 ft), Sanaa is the seventh highest capital city in the world and is next to the Sarawat Mountains of Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb and Jabal Tiyal, considered to be the highest mountains in the Arabian Peninsula and one of the highest in the Middle East.

Sanaa has a population of approximately 3,300,000 (2023), making it Yemen's largest city. As of 2020, the greater Sanaa urban area makes up about 10% of Yemen's total population. The Old City of Sanaa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has a distinctive architectural character, most notably expressed in its multi-story buildings decorated with geometric patterns. Al-Saleh Mosque, the largest in the country, is located in the southern outskirts of the city.

According to the Yemeni constitution, Sanaa is the capital of the country, although the seat of the Yemeni government moved to Aden, the former capital of South Yemen, in the aftermath of the Houthi occupation. Aden was declared the temporary capital by then-president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in March 2015.

The first known text in the Musnad script that mentions Sanaa dates back to the 5th century BC and it is mentioned as "San'u", which is derived from the word "Masna'ah" in the Sebaean language, which means a "fortress."

The city of Sanaa was founded by the Kingdom of Saba in the 1st century CE as a secondary capital, with the primary capital since the origins of the civilisation being at the oasis of Marib. The name Sanaa is probably derived from the Sabaic root ṣnʿ, meaning "well-fortified". The name is attested in old Sabaean inscriptions, mostly from the 3rd century CE, as ṣnʿw. In the present day, a popular folk etymology says that the name Sanaa refers to "the excellence of its trades and crafts (perhaps the feminine form of the Arabic adjective aṣnaʿ)".

Appropriately enough for a town whose name means "well-fortified", Sanaa appears to have been an important military center under the Sabaeans. They used it as a base for their expeditions against the kingdom of Himyar further south, and several inscriptions "announce a triumphant return to Sanaa from the wars." Sanaa is referred to in these inscriptions both as a town (hgr) and as a maram (mrm), which, according to A. F. L. Beeston, indicates "a place to which access is prohibited or restricted, no matter whether for religious or for other reasons". The Sabaean inscriptions also mention the Ghumdan Palace by name.

When King Yousef Athar (or Dhu Nuwas), the last of the Himyarite kings, was in power, Sanaʽa was also the capital of the Axumite viceroys.^{[citation needed]} Later tradition also holds that the Abyssinian conqueror Abrahah built a Christian church in Sanaa.

According to Islamic sources, Sanaa was founded at the base of the mountains of Jabal Nuqum by Shem, the son of Noah, after the latter's death. The 10th-century Arab historian al-Hamdani wrote that Sanaa's ancient name was Azāl, which is not recorded in any contemporary Sabaean inscriptions. The name Azāl has been connected to Uzal, a son of Qahtan, a great-grandson of Shem, in the biblical accounts of the Book of Genesis.