The North Yemen civil war was a civil war fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970 between partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic. The war began with a coup d'état carried out in 1962 by revolutionary republicans led by the army under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal. He dethroned the newly crowned King and Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. His government abolished slavery in Yemen. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border where he rallied popular support from northern Zaydi tribes to retake power, and the conflict escalated rapidly to a full-scale civil war.

The Kingdom of Yemen, officially the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, also known simply as Yemen or, retrospectively, as North Yemen, was a state that existed between 1918 and 1962 in the northwestern part of what is now Yemen. Located in the Middle East, the Kingdom of Yemen had an area of 195,000 km2. The country was bordered by Saudi Arabia in the north, and the Aden Protectorate to the south. Its capital was Sana'a from 1918 to 1948, then Taiz from 1948 to 1962. Yemen was admitted to the United Nations on 30 September 1947. From 1962 to 1970, it maintained control over portions of Yemen until its final defeat in the North Yemen Civil War.