Seiyun (sometimes Sayoun or Saywun) is the largest town in the Hadramawt valley and the regional administrative centre. It sits on the wadi floor with the orange-brown wall of the plateau rising directly behind it. The town is unspectacular in itself — flat, dusty, low-rise — but it is the natural hub for visits to Shibam twenty kilometres west and Tarim thirty kilometres east.
For decades Seiyun was a meeting point for the Hadrami diaspora returning from Indonesia, Singapore and East Africa; the wealth they brought back built much of the older architecture. The town is also the base for the regional airport, which historically connected the valley to Sanaa, the Gulf and beyond.