the size of Yemen

"Well, it's a case of Wikipedia^°hard word using bad sources – a very common occurrence^°hard word indeed. Surely, other sources must have gotten it right?" So I looked into the most reliable^°hard word source: the CIA^°hard word World^°hard word Factbook^°hard word, which claimed^°hard word that the size of Yemen^°hard word is 527,968 km^°hard word2. The same number can be found in the World^°hard word Bank database, the United Nations website, as well as an old geography book that I found in my closet. But it still diverges^°hard word from the Google^°hard word Maps number. Why? I delved^°hard word into previous editions^°hard word of the CIA^°hard word World^°hard word Factbook^°hard word and found the earliest editions^°hard word where the number appeared – 1991, exactly a year after the unification^°hard word of Yemen^°hard word happened.

I looked into previous editions^°hard word and found separate entries^°hard word for North and South Yemen^°hard word – with the first one being 195,000 km^°hard word2, and the second one being 332,968 km^°hard word2. Both numbers were summed^°hard word up to form the total^°hard word size of United Yemen^°hard word. But were they correct? I plugged^°hard word the borders^°hard word used in the textbook^°hard word into Google^°hard word Earth, and to my surprise, I found out that none of them were correct – North Yemen^°hard word only had 136,000 km^°hard word2, and South Yemen^°hard word was only 288,000 km^°hard word2. There was no possibility^°hard word of some minor^°hard word border^°hard word or rounding error. They were both wildly off. What was happening here?