[1] Shibam is a market town at the edge of a large agricultural plain;[4] above it is the fortress-town of Kawkaban, at the summit of the cliffs to the southwest.

[1] According to al-Hamdani, the town had originally been called Yuḥbis, and had taken the name "Shibam" after a man of the Banu Hamdan tribe who had settled there.

[6] Beginning in the 1500s, Shibam Kawkaban was a stronghold of the Alid Sharaf al-Din dynasty, which produced two Zaydi Imams of Yemen.

[2] In the early 20th century, the mountain village was visited by German explorer and photographer Hermann Burchardt, who wrote in May 1902: "Kawkaban, a now completely deserted town that still 40 years ago counted 30,000 inhabitants, but now hardly holds a few hundred; [it] also has its Jewish quarter, where still some families live.

[2] In February 2016 as part of the Yemeni Civil War, fighter jets from U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition struck the town citadel, killing seven residents and destroying the historic gateway as well as the 700-year-old houses.

Due to its outstanding elevation that nears 3,000 m (9,800 ft), the town receives larger diurnal ranges and more precipitation compared to the nearby capital, Sanaa.

The plentiful rainfall is a direct result of its exposed location (it is not shielded by any natural barriers) on top of a mountain and its rugged terrain; both factors leading to occasional orographic lifts rising from nearby slopes.