It is situated at the entrance to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean (via the Gulf of Aden) and is one of the most active and strategic shipping lanes in the world.

Yemen has an area of 455,503 square kilometres (175,871 sq mi), including the islands of Perim at the southern end of the Red Sea and Socotra at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden.

[6] The country's mountainous interior is surrounded by narrow coastal plains to the west, south, and east and by upland desert to the north along the border with Saudi Arabia.

Water storage allows for irrigation and the growing of wheat and barley while the western highlands are famous for sorghum, coffee, and some tropical fruits like bananas and mangos.

The interior mountains have elevations ranging from a few hundred meters to the highest point in the country and the Arabian Peninsula, Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb, which is 3,666 m (12,028 ft) above sea level, within the Harazi subrange of the Sarawat.

The western highlands have peaks reaching around 3,000 metres (1.9 miles), with relatively fertile soil and sufficient and plentiful rainfall.

The central highlands is more like a plateau of about 2,000–3,200 metres (1.2–2.0 miles), with rolling hills, small knolls, and some very prominent peaks, but is still relatively more elevated.

The climate of the Tihamah (western coastal plain) is tropical; temperatures occasionally exceed 54 °C (129.2 °F), and the humidity ranges from 50 to 70 percent.

Other natural resources include fish and seafood, rock salt, marble, and major unexplored deposits of coal, gold, lead, nickel, and copper.

[3] It is a party to international Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, and Ozone Layer Protection agreements.

This agreement provides coordinates for use in delineating the land and maritime border, including the section in the eastern desert region of Yemen that potentially contains significant amounts of oil.