Mudbrick Tower City

Mudbrick Tower City is an original illustration set in Hadhramaut, Yemen. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is hot desert — evaporation far outruns rainfall.

A packed city of tall mudbrick tower houses, six to eight storeys, rises straight from the desert floor. White lime trim edges the upper floors. The buildings crowd tight together with narrow shaded gaps between them, in low late-afternoon light.

Why can a mudbrick city be built this tall?

Building upward in mudbrick requires walls that taper as they rise and a dry climate that never soaks them — one prolonged wet season would dissolve the city. Packing the towers this tightly makes every street a shaded canyon. The lime trim at the top is not decoration but waterproofing where the flash floods of a wadi never reach but rain occasionally does.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.