Hadibo or Hadibu (Arab. حاديبو‎ – Ḥādībū) is a coastal town in the north of Socotra Island, Yemen, near Mount Jabal Jahir (English Jabal al-Jahir). It is the capital of the island of Socotra and the entire Socotra archipelago. Hadibo is also the capital of the larger eastern Hidaybu (Hidaybū) district of Socotra’s two administrative regions.

History
Back in the 20th century and earlier, Hadibo was called Tamarida (English تمريدة; English Tamarida).
April 1608. A ship of the British East India Company visits Socotra for the first time, the new capital of the island of Tamarida (Hadibo). The British merchant William Finch has been living on the island for three months, and his notes about Socotra have been preserved.
August 1615. English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe visits Socotra.
1800. Socotra is briefly captured by the Wahhabis.
1834. Captain S. B. Haynes (in 1839 he captured Aden and became its first British governor) of the East India Company’s navy on the survey ship Palinurus makes a cartographic survey of Socotra. In the same year, Sultan Amr bin Saad rejected the offer of the British to transfer the island to them, and Socotra was captured by the Anglo-Indian amphibious assault of the East India Company. The British planned to set up a coal station on Socotra for their ships. The conditions of the stay of the English garrison on the island due to the malaria epidemic turned out to be extremely difficult.
1839. After the capture of Aden, the British leave Socotra.
January 23, 1876. The British signed an agreement with the Sultan of Kishna (Sultan of Mahra and Socotra).
Early 1880. Professor Isaac Bailey Balfour (1853–1922) of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh conducts the first botanical expedition to Socotra for seven weeks, describing in detail its unique flora for the first time in European science. More than 200 plant species new to science have been discovered.
1881-1882. Expeditions of the German traveler Georg Schweinfurt to Socotra.
April 23, 1886. Great Britain signs an agreement with the Sultan of Mahra and Socotra on a British protectorate over his possessions. The Sultan was transported with honors from Kishn to Socotra, where now, according to the agreement, his capital should be located. The British flag is raised in Tamarid (Hadibo) and Qalansiya.

Description of the city
It is the largest city in the Socotra archipelago; population – 8 545 people 2004 census. More like an urban-type settlement. In fact, it is a large village.
There are no roads as such, much less architecture. In Hadibo, only a couple of streets are covered with asphalt, the rest are rocky primers. There are no sights to be found in Hadibo either, so half an hour is enough to walk along the dirty streets and get an idea of ​​​​this place. Low buildings, but there are also three-story houses and a mosque.
The hotel business in Socotra, including Hadibo, is not developed. Hadibo and Qalansia are two towns in Socotra where you can find an inn.
The local restaurant is not at all worthy of the title of a restaurant – it reminds of public catering in the old days somewhere in the backyards of the USSR. As of October 2013, the restaurant has disposable napkins, tablecloths, disposable tableware (and maybe disposable ones used many times) and unhurried waiters. Tables are placed both inside and outside. Almost no one speaks English – you have to explain yourself with gestures, including the staff and the chef of the local restaurant.
Garbage is lying everywhere, including 30 meters from the entrance to the hotel. Garbage is eaten by vultures and goats.
If you walk a little deeper into the streets, you can get to the local market, located on one of the main streets. In Hadibo, you can buy almost everything on the market: from mineral water to non-alcoholic beer and from chewing gum to meat. You can buy vegetables and fruits. Moreover, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, oranges – all at the same price. By the way, you need to go for meat in the morning. In the butcher’s shop, you can choose from ready-made freshly cut meat, as well as a whole goat or lamb. Goat skulls are scattered throughout the restaurant. Animals are slaughtered right there in the market. There is no alcohol, because it is strictly prohibited – Islam is.
There are only three or four gas stations for cars in Socotra, and not all gas stations may have gas available at the right time. Abandoned old cars in the city center are a common sight in Hadibo, but maybe all the junk belongs to someone.

Citizens of Hadibo
Taking pictures of everything in a row is highly discouraged, you must ask the permission of the locals to capture them in the frame, otherwise you can get a stone in the forehead. Photographing women is prohibited in the same way as in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, and throughout Yemen. Someone likes to be photographed and climbs into the frame himself, while someone, on the contrary, protests and demands to remove the camera, thinking that the camera steals their soul.
There are many blacks in Hadibo – immigrants from the African continent: from neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. They are the most ardent opponents of photography.
Football is one of the favorite pastimes of the locals.

Goats in Hadibo
For the inhabitants of the city, animal husbandry is the main source of income.
Of all the natural and climatic zones of Socotra Island, the northern and southern plains of the island are the least suitable for grazing: there are few pastures, poor vegetation, and groundwater is deep. Only on the Northern Coastal Plain there are areas densely overgrown with miterer and shicate. The exception is the small plain (enclave) of Habido, where the city of Habido is located. The plain of Habido is abundantly irrigated by streams of water flowing down from the Hagher Mountains.
The largest subgroup, as of 1960-1970, and probably today too, were the inhabitants of the Northern Coastal Plain. Far fewer people lived in the 1960s and 1970s on the sandy Southern Coastal Plain, at Nougaed.
Despite the adverse conditions, the inhabitants of Habido were and are engaged in cattle breeding. They mainly raise goats. Cows were rarely seen in the 1960s and 1970s in Hadibo, in the villages of this plain in the hills south of the plain. The inhabitants of the village of Kedha, not far towards the inner part of the plain from Habido, still have cows today, belonging to the family of the Seyuds of Abu b Akr. So, one of them owned 10 cows, a camel, several dozen goats.
Vultures and goats eat rubbish thrown into the street with pleasure. Goats in Yemen are a separate story. Each village has fields surrounded by low stone fences. In these fields, special low bushes are grown, which are gnawed by goats. Goats in Hadibo are like mutants – they are happy to chew plastic bags and cardboard from landfills, jump on the table, tried to smash the leftovers left over from lunch at the restaurant. How not to die is not clear. In general, goats are there instead of cats and dogs as pets.

Agriculture in Hadibo
In small plots in the courtyard of the house, back in the 1960s and 1970s, the inhabitants of Hadibo grew vegetables exclusively to satisfy their own needs. Only occasionally could you meet a person selling onions or tomatoes. In the 1980s, only in one place on the island of Socotra, in the eastern part Nougeda (Southern Plain of the island), where there is enough fresh water, watermelons were grown for sale. Today, vegetables are also grown for sale, but in very small quantities. Today, sea and air communications have well connected the island of Socotra with other parts of Yemen, primarily by sea with Hadhramawt through the port city of al-Mukalla closest to Socotra and by air with Sana’a. Now the market always has fresh fruits and vegetables brought from the mainland.