Overview
Situated on the Red Sea, it is an important port, exporting coffee, cotton, dates and hides. It was developed as a seaport in the mid-19th century by the Ottoman Turks.
In 1914, during the First World War German troops led by Major Freiherr Othmar von Stotzingen established a wireless station at Al Hudaydah, which was used during the Arab Revolt to relay communications from Constantinople to German East Africa as well as broadcast propaganda to the Sudan, British Somaliland and Abyssinia.
The city was briefly occupied by Saudi forces during the Saudi–Yemeni War of 1934.
After a disastrous fire in January 1961 destroyed much of Al-Hudaydah, it was rebuilt, particularly the port facilities, with Soviet aid. A highway to Sana, the capital, was completed in 1961. The city was also the site of a Soviet naval base in the 1970s and 1980s.
Al-Hudaydah has a large number of historical places; particularly in Zabid, which is regarded as one of the most important Islamic towns in the world. The city is not large but it has more than one hundred old mosques. Furthermore, it used to have a university, which is as old as al-Azhar.
The Malay writer Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir visited Al Hudaydah on his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1854, and describes the city in his account of the journey, mentioning that the custom of chewing khat was prevalent in the city at this time.
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