Shibam - "Manhattan" in the desert

Shibam - a town in Hadramawt, Yemen, the population of about 7,000 inhabitants. Shibam was the capital of the kingdom of Hadramaut several times. (With the same name exists in the vicinity of the capital city of Yemen, Sana'a). Shibam is renowned for its incomparable with anything comparable architecture, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage program. All the houses in Shibam built of mud bricks, approximately 500 homes can be considered a high-rise, as they have 5-11 floors, each floor is an apartment occupied by one family. This type of structure was designed to protect residents from the raids of the Bedouins. While Shibam has existed for about 2,000 years, most of the town houses were built in the XVI century. Many of them have been repeatedly rebuilt over the past century.

Shibam is often called "the oldest skyscraper city in the world" or "Manhattan of the desert", is also the oldest example of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. In Shibam are the highest clay building in the world, some of which rise 30 meters or more,
16 ph © Khaled Abdullah, Reuters





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