How Much of Yemen Do the Houthis Control? The Map in November 2026

The Houthis control Yemen’s northwest: the capital and the densely populated mountains around it, plus most of the coast on the Red Sea. Their territory includes Sanaa, which they have held since September 21, 2014, their home province of Saada on the Saudi border, and the governorates of Amran, Hajjah, Al Mahwit, Raymah, Dhamar and Ibb. They also hold almost all of Hodeidah, whose port is the country’s main gateway for food and fuel, and most of Al Bayda in the center.

The edges of their territory run through contested governorates. They hold parts of Al Jawf and Marib in the east, where fighting has flared again this autumn, and parts of Taiz, Al Dhale and Lahj in the south, where it is moving now. The city of Marib, the government’s oil and gas center in the north, has never fallen to them, despite a long offensive in 2021.

About a third of Yemen’s land area is under Houthi control. Estimates published in December 2025 put the figure at about 33 percent, in line with the roughly one-third share cited for years. Yemen covers about 528,000 square kilometers, so a third is roughly 175,000 square kilometers.

The autumn’s gains on the Red Sea coast and in Taiz and Lahj have added to that share, but no one has published a new measured figure, and front-line maps from either side are claims. What changed most is not the size but the shape: a year ago the government held the southern half of the Red Sea coast, and now the Houthis hold almost all of it.

Most Yemenis live under Houthi rule, usually estimated at two-thirds to 70 percent of the population. Yemen has not held a census since 2004, so every figure is an estimate; with a population put at around 35 million, that means somewhere above 20 million people.

The gap between land and people comes from geography. The western highlands, with Sanaa, Ibb, Dhamar and Taiz, are the most crowded part of the country, while the government’s eastern governorates, Hadramawt, Shabwa and Al Mahra, are mostly desert and thinly settled. Whoever holds the highlands rules most Yemenis, even with a minority of the map.

The Houthis have taken the Red Sea coast, surrounded Taiz and pushed into Lahj province, the last governorate between them and Aden. On September 10 they captured the districts of Hays and Al Khawkhah in Hodeidah and the port town of Mokha. The next day they claimed the whole Red Sea coast, and the government confirmed it had pulled its forces off Perim island in the Bab el-Mandeb. Silent Dossier’s explainer on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait explains why that coast matters to world shipping.

In early October they cut the road from Taiz south to Aden, its last link to government territory, and by mid-October the city was encircled. More than 100,000 people have been displaced by the siege. At the end of October they overran Al-Maqatirah district in Lahj, and by November 2 fighting had reached Tur al-Bahah, about 80 kilometers from Aden. By November 13 the fighting had reached al-Madaribah wal Ara, the Lahj district on Aden’s border, and the Houthis had taken hilltops overlooking the city.

The government has hit back. Its offensive, Operation Dawn of Yemen, began on October 5. Government forces say they retook much of Dhubab district and positions near Bab el-Mandeb in October, which the Houthis deny, and on November 1 they said they had taken heights east of Al Hazm, the capital of Al Jawf. Neither side’s claims can be fully checked. What is clear is that no provincial capital has changed hands: Taiz is surrounded but holding, and the Houthis are mobilizing for a final push because two months of fighting have not delivered one.

Aden and the south are held by Yemen’s internationally recognized government and its allied forces, backed by Saudi Arabia. Aden has been the government’s temporary capital since the Houthis took Sanaa, and the Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi since 2022, governs from there.

The south changed hands inside the anti-Houthi camp this year. In December 2025 the separatist Southern Transitional Council seized Hadramawt and Al Mahra and claimed most of the former South Yemen. In early January, Saudi-backed forces retook Hadramawt, the presidential palace in Aden and camps in Al Mahra, and on January 9, 2026, the council announced its dissolution a day after its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, left for the United Arab Emirates. Today the government side is a coalition of units: Saudi-backed National Shield forces, the Giants Brigades on the coast near Bab el-Mandeb, Tareq Saleh’s forces, which held the west coast until September, and army and tribal units in Marib and Taiz.

Aden itself is now under fire. Its airport and the presidential palace were struck in October, and on the night of November 11 two Houthi ballistic missiles hit Al Buraiqeh, on the city’s western edge.

The Houthis took over because their movement, built in the far north, found a state too weak to stop it. The movement, formally called Ansarullah, grew in Saada among Zaydi Shia Muslims and fought six wars with the government between 2004 and 2010. Its leader since 2004 has been Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

In September 2014 its fighters entered Sanaa, and in early 2015 they drove south toward Aden, briefly entering the city. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 and pushed them back from the south, and the front then froze roughly where it stands in the north today. A UN-brokered truce in April 2022 cut the fighting for years. It collapsed in 2026, when the Houthis turned their missiles on Saudi Arabia and their ground forces south. Iran is the movement’s main foreign backer.