is a term currently used to designate both the '''
People's Democratic Republic Of Yemen ''' (
1970 -
1990 ) and its predecessor, the '''
People's Republic Of South Yemen ''' (
1967 -
1970 ), that exercised
Sovereignty over the territory that is now the southern part of the state of
Yemen in southern
Arabia .
The term only came into general use when the
Federation Of South Arabia gained independence as the People's Republic of South Yemen in
1967 , making a distinction from the
Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) to the north necessary. Prior to 1967, the YAR and its predecessor, the
Mutawakkilite Kingdom Of Yemen , were known in short form simply as "Yemen." In
1970 , South Yemen changed its name to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) thus eliminating any directional reference in either of the Yemens' official names but the existence of two Yemens preserved the North Yemen and South Yemen designations in popular parlance. Alternate forms were "Yemen (Aden)" for South Yemen and "Yemen (Sanaa)" for North Yemen after their respective capital cities.
The merger of the YAR and the PDRY in
1990 as the
Republic Of Yemen ended the term's association with an independent state but "South Yemen" continues to be used to refer to the area of the former PDRY and its history and,
Anachronistically , to pre-1967 polities and events in the same area (e.g., the Federation of South Arabia, the
Aden Protectorate , or the
Colony Of Aden ).
