Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb

Where is Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb?

Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb is part of the Sarawat Mountains, west of Sanaa.

You will find it in: Yemen.

Summit: 15.279° N, 43.976° E

The story behind it

The mountain is the high point of a whole plateau: instead of a lonely peak on a plain, it is the crest of the Sarawat mountains, which run in a long line above the Red Sea coast. Its rock is mostly old lava and hard volcanic layers from a time when this corner of Arabia cracked open and the sea between Africa and Asia began to form. Farmers have cut narrow terraces into the steep slopes and hold the soil with stone walls, growing grain, coffee and qat wherever water can be led. Air up here is thin and cold at night, frost is normal in winter, and snow falls now and then, which surprises people who expect only desert in Yemen. A road climbs high towards the summit, though the area around the very top is used by the military.

Find it on the globe

Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.