The Protectorate of South Arabia consisted of various states located at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula under treaties of protection with Britain. The area of the former protectorate became part of South Yemen after the Radfan uprising and is now part of the Republic of Yemen.
The background of the Protectorate of South Arabia is part of an effort of the British Empire to protect the East India Route, the sea route between the Mediterranean Sea and India, in and through the southern coasts of Arabia. Already before the opening of the Suez Canal, industrial Britain with its rapidly expanding economy, needed improved communication with British India.
From the first commercial treaty with the Sultanate of Lahej in 1802, various efforts were made to avoid looting of East India ships, leading to the annexing of Aden by the East India Company in 1839. The Aden Protectorate was established in 1869, the same year of the opening of the Suez Canal which heralded a new era of trade and communication.
The Protectorate of South Arabia was designated on 18 January 1963 as consisting of those areas of the Aden Protectorate that did not join the Federation of South Arabia, and it broadly, but not exactly, corresponded to the division of the Aden Protectorate which was called the Eastern Aden Protectorate.
The protectorate included the Hadhrami states of Kathiri, Mahra, and Qu’aiti except the three Wahidi Sultanates in the Eastern Aden Protectorate, with Upper Yafa in the Western Aden Protectorate. The Protectorate of South Arabia was dissolved on 30 November 1967 and its constituent states quickly collapsed, leading to the abolition of their monarchies. The territory was absorbed into the newly independent People’s Republic of South Yemen, which became part of the Republic of Yemen in 1990.