Libya Plasma Hotel Tripoli hotel de 4 stele Tripoli

Official Name: Libya Geography Location: North Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, southern border with Chad, Niger, and Sudan. Area: 1,759,540 sq. km. Cities: Tripoli (capital), Benghazi. Terrain: Mostly barren, flat to undulating plains, plateaus, depressions. Climate: Mediterranean along coast; dry, extreme desert interior. Land use: Arable land--1.03%; permanent crops--0.19%; other--98.78%. People Nationality: Noun and adjective--Libyan(s). Population (July 2010 est.): 6,461,454. Annual population growth rate (2010 est.): 2.117%. Birth rate (2010 est.)--24.58 births/1,000 population. Death rate (2010 est.)--3.45 deaths/1,000 population. Ethnic groups: Berber and Arab 97%; other 3% (includes Greeks, Maltese, Italians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Turks, Indians, and Tunisians). Religion: Sunni Muslim 97%, other 3%. Languages: Arabic is the primary language. English and Italian are understood in major cities. Education: Years compulsory--9. Attendance--90%. Literacy (age 15 and over who can read and write)--total population 82.6%; male 92.4%; female 72% (2003 est.). Health (2010 est.): Infant mortality rate--20.87 deaths/1,000 live births. Life expectancy--total population 77.47 years; male 75.18 years; female 79.88 years. Work force (2010 est.): 1.686 million. Government Official name: Libya. Type: Transitional National Council (interim, appointed government). Independence: Libya declared independence on December 24, 1951. Revolution Day: February 17, 2011. Constitution: The Transitional National Council (TNC) released a constitutional document in August 2011 describing its plans for a democratic transition. Administrative divisions: Local affairs are currently being managed by local municipal councils. It is not clear whether the Qadhafi-era “shabiya” system of 32 municipalities will be maintained consisting of: Butnan, Darnah, Gubba, al-Jebal al-Akhdar, Marj, al-Jebal al-Hezam, Benghazi, Ajdabiya, Wahat, Kufra, Surt, Al Jufrah, Misurata, Murgub, Bani-Walid, Tarhuna and Msallata, Tripoli, Jfara, Zawiya, Sabratha and Surman, An Nuqat al-Khams, Gharyan, Mezda, Nalut, Ghadames, Yefren, Wadi Alhaya, Ghat, Sabha, Wadi Shati, Murzuq, Tajura and an-Nuwaha al-Arba'a. Major political parties: The Political Party Law has not yet been passed. Suffrage: 18 years of age per the Election Law passed February 7, 2012. Economy Real GDP (2010 est.): $92.62 billion. GDP per capita (PPP, 2010 est.): $14,100. Real GDP growth rate (2010 est.): 4.2%. Natural resources: Petroleum, natural gas, gypsum. Agriculture: Products--wheat, barley, olives, dates, citrus, vegetables, peanuts, soybeans; cattle; approximately 75% of Libya's food is imported. Industry: Types--petroleum, food processing, textiles, handicrafts, cement. Trade: Exports (2011 est.)--$12.93 billion: crude oil, refined petroleum products, natural gas, chemicals. Major markets (2010 est.)--Italy (31.6%), France (13%), China (9.2%), Spain (9.1%), Germany (8.4%), U.S. (4.5%). Imports (2011 est.)--$14.1 billion: machinery, transport equipment, food, manufactured goods, consumer products, semi-finished goods. Major suppliers (2010)--Italy (16.3%), China (10.3%), Turkey (9.7%), France (6.8%), Germany (6.4%), Tunisia (4.8%). PEOPLE Libya has a small population in a large land area. Population density is about 50 persons per sq. km. (80/sq. mi.) in the two northern regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, but falls to less than one person per sq. km. (1.6/sq. mi.) elsewhere. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast. More than half the population is urban, mostly concentrated in the two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi. Thirty-three percent of the population is estimated to be under age 15. Native Libyans are primarily a mixture of Arabs and Berbers. Small Tebou and Tuareg tribal groups in southern Libya are nomadic or semi-nomadic. Among foreign residents, the largest groups are citizens of other African nations, including North Africans (primarily Egyptians and Tunisians), West Africans, and other Sub-Saharan Africans. Before the discovery of oil in the late 1950s, Libya was considered poor in natural resources and severely limited by its desert environment. The country was almost entirely dependent upon foreign aid and imports for the maintenance of its economy; the discovery of petroleum dramatically changed this situation. The government long exerted strong control over the economy and attempted to develop agriculture and industry with wealth derived from its huge oil revenues. It also established a welfare state, which provides medical care and education at minimal cost to the people. Although Libya’s long-ruling leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, espoused an idiosyncratic political ideology rooted in socioeconomic egalitarianism and direct democracy, Libya in practice remained an authoritarian state, with power concentrated among members of Qaddafi’s inner circle of relatives and security chiefs. Opposition to the Qaddafi regime reached an unprecedented level in 2011, developing into an armed revolt that forced Qaddafi from power. (For a discussion of unrest in Libya in 2011, see Libya Revolt of 2011.) Mukhtar Mustafa BuruGary L. FowlerDennis D. CordellThe Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica Land Related People Septimius Severus Pietro Badoglio Muammar al-Qaddafi Arius Idris I Abū Yaḥyā al-Lībī Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi Eratosthenes Enver Paşa Aristippus Libya is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north, Egypt on the east, Sudan on the southeast, Niger and Chad on the south, and Tunisia and Algeria on the west. Libya. Physical features map. Includes locator. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Relief Libya is underlain by basement rocks of Precambrian age (from about 4 billion to 540 million years ago) mantled with marine and wind-borne deposits. The major physical features are the Nafūsah Plateau and the Al-Jifārah (Gefara) Plain in the northwest, the Akhḍar Mountains (“Green Mountains”) in the northeast, and the Saharan plateau, which occupies much of the rest of the country. The Al-Jifārah Plain covers about 10,000 square miles (26,000 square km) of Libya’s northwestern corner. It rises from sea level to about 1,000 feet (300 metres) at the foothills of the Nafūsah Plateau. Composed of sand dunes, salt marshes, and steppe, the plain is home to most of Libya’s population and to its largest city, Tripoli. The Nafūsah Plateau is a limestone massif that stretches for about 212 miles (340 km) from Al-Khums on the coast to the Tunisian border at Nālūt. West of Tarhūnah it rises steeply from the Al-Jifārah Plain, reaching elevations between 1,500 and 3,200 feet (450 and 975 metres). Test Your Knowledge Ruins of statues at Karnak, Egypt. History Buff Quiz In northeastern Libya, the Akhḍar Mountains stretch along the coast between Al-Marj and Darnah. These limestone mountains rise steeply from the coast to about 2,000 feet (600 metres) and then stretch about 20 miles (30 km) inland, reaching nearly 3,000 feet (900 metres) at their highest points. The Saharan plateau makes up about nine-tenths of Libya. About half of the plateau is sand desert, making it truly a sea of sand. Al-Harūj al-Aswad is a hilly basaltic plateau in central Libya. Covered with angular stone fragments and boulders, it rises to about 2,600 feet (800 metres) and is crowned by volcanic peaks. Al-Ḥamrāʾ Plateau lies south of the Nafūsah Plateau. It harbours bare rock outcroppings that rise to 2,700 feet (820 metres). In the Fezzan region in the southwest, a series of long depressions and basins contain wadis (dry riverbeds) and oasis settlements. Mobile sand dunes that reach heights of 300 feet (90 metres) are found in the Fezzan’s Marzūq desert and in the eastern Libyan Desert, which extends into Egypt. The country’s highest elevations are Bīkkū Bīttī peak (Picco Bette), which rises to 7,436 feet (2,267 metres) on the Libya-Chad border, and Mount Al-ʿUwaynāt, with an elevation of 6,345 feet (1,934 metres) on the Libya-Sudan-Egypt border. Drainage Related Places Ghāt Sirtica Al-Marj North Africa Maghrib Sabratha Caliphate Wādī ash-Shāṭiʾ Al-Zāwiyah Nafūsah Plateau There are no permanent rivers in Libya. The numerous wadis that drain the uplands are filled by flash floods during the rains but then quickly dry up or are reduced to a trickle. The largest wadi systems are the Wadi Zamzam and Wadi Bayy al-Kabīr, both of which empty into the sea on the western coast of the Gulf of Sidra. Other large wadis drain the interior basins of Sirte, Zalṭan, and the Fezzan. There is also, however, extensive underground water. Numerous oases are watered by wells and springs, and artesian wells tap large deep fossil aquifers in the Fezzan and southeastern Libya; the Great Man-Made River was one of the more ambitious projects designed to make use of these underground reserves. (See map illustrating the phases of the Great Man-Made River project that were planned or completed in the late 20th century.) Along the coastal strip there are several salt flats, or sabkhas, formed by the ponding and evaporation of water behind coastal dunes. Principal salt flats are found at Tāwurghāʾ, at Zuwārah, and on the Banghāzī Plain. Soils The gray-brown soils of the Al-Jifārah Plain and the Nafūsah Plateau in the west are fertile, although overirrigation has led to increased soil salination. In the east, the soils of the Barce plain—which stretches between the Akhḍar Mountains and the sea—are light and fertile. Rich alluvial soils are found in the coastal deltas and valleys of large wadis. On the margins of the Sahara, cultivation and overgrazing have seriously depleted the soil. The rest of the country is covered by wind-eroded sand or stony desert. The soils in these areas are poorly developed, with little organic material. Climate Libya’s climate is dominated by the hot, arid Sahara, but it is moderated along the coastal littoral by the Mediterranean Sea. The Saharan influence is stronger in summer. From October to March, prevailing westerly winds bring cyclonic storms and rains across northern Libya. A narrow band of semiarid steppe extends inland from the Mediterranean climate of the Al-Jifārah Plain, the Nafūsah Plateau, and the Akhḍar Mountains. The desert climate of the Sahara reaches the coast along the southern fringes of the Gulf of Sidra, where Al-Ḥamrāyah (Sirte) Desert borders the sea. Periodic droughts, often lasting several years, are common in the steppe and desert. Connect with Britannica Along the coast, the Mediterranean climate is characterized by a cool, rainy winter season and a hot, dry summer. The warmest months are July and August, when average temperatures in Banghāzī and Tripoli, in the Mediterranean zone, reach between the low 70s and mid-80s F (low to upper 20s C) and the low 60s and mid-80s F (upper 10s and low 30s C), respectively. The coolest months are January and February; winter monthly temperatures in Banghāzī range from the low 50s to low 60s F (low to mid-10s C), while those in Tripoli range from the upper 40s to low 60s F (low to mid-10s C). Banghāzī has an average annual precipitation of about 10 inches (250 mm), and Tripoli receives an annual average of about 15 inches (380 mm). Inland from the coast, annual precipitation declines, and its variability increases. Most rain falls in a few days between November and January. Less than 4 inches (100 mm) of rain falls annually in the steppes, and Saharan zones receive less than 1 inch (25 mm). In the Sahara, 200 consecutive rainless days in a year have been recorded in many areas, and the world’s highest degree of aridity has been recorded at Sabhā, which averages only 0.4 inch (10 mm) of precipitation annually. Average temperatures at Sabhā are in the low 50s F (low 10s C) in January and in the upper 80s F (low 30s C) in July, but these averages mask the fact that temperatures may vary enormously over the course of a day. The dry climate is exacerbated by the ghibli, a hot, arid wind that blows from the south over the entire country several times a year. It is usually preceded by a short lull in the prevailing winds, followed by the full force of the ghibli. The wind carries large quantities of sand dust, which turns the sky red and reduces visibility to less than 60 feet (18 metres). The heat of the wind is increased by a rapid drop of relative humidity, which can fall dramatically within hours. Fort Elena, on a hill near Sabhā, Libya. Fort Elena, on a hill near Sabhā, Libya. J. Allan Cash Photolibrary/EB Inc. Plant and animal life Related Topics Libya bombings of 1986 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Arabic language OPEC Arab Spring Council of Arab Economic Unity flag of Libya Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa Great Man-Made River (GMR) Italo-Turkish War In years of ample precipitation, the coastal plains are covered with herbaceous vegetation and annual grasses; the most noticeable plants are the asphodel (an herb of the lily family) and jubule. The northern area of the Akhḍar Mountains—where the influence of the Mediterranean is most dominant—supports low and relatively dense forest (or maquis) of juniper and lentisc. Annual plants are abundant and include brome grass, canary grass, bluegrass, and rye grass. The forest becomes more scattered and stunted south of the mountain crest, and annual plants are less frequent. In the west, plant life is more sparse on the Nafūsah Plateau, where grasslands lie between the barren hills. In the semiarid steppes, vegetation is also sparse, characterized by pockets of isolated drought-resistant plants. The most commonly found species are saltwort (a plant used in making soda ash) and spurge flax (a shrubby plant), while goosefoot, wormwood, and asphodel also are widespread. Annual grasses grow in the rainy season, and leguminous plants appear in years of good precipitation. Although precipitation is extremely low in the true desert zone and the vegetation cover is scant, some plants from the semiarid region penetrate the occasional wadi valley, and date palms are grown in the southern oases. Wild animals include desert rodents, such as the desert hare and the jerboa; hyenas; foxes, such as the fennec and the red fox; jackals; skunks; gazelles; and wildcats. The poisonous adder and krait are among the reptiles that inhabit the scattered oases and water holes. Native birds include the wild ringdove, the partridge, the lark, and the prairie hen. Eagles, hawks, and vultures are also common. People Ethnic groups and languages Almost all Libyans speak Arabic, the country’s official language. They claim descent from the Bedouin Arab tribes of the Banū Hilāl and the Banū Sulaym, who are said to have invaded the Maghrib in the 11th century. The government’s embrace of Arab nationalism has reduced Western influences, although English is still widely used as a second language in international business and politics. At the beginning of the 21st century, Libya’s population included a substantial number of foreign migrant workers—largely from sub-Saharan African countries—temporarily residing in the country. The tribe (qabīlah), a form of social organization that allowed the grouping of nomadic peoples scattered across the country’s vast spaces, was the foundation of social order for much of Libya’s history. The Imazighen (Berbers) are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of Libya. The main Amazigh (plural Imazighen) groups were the Luata, the Nefusa, and the Adassa. They lived in coastal oases and practiced sedentary agriculture. Most Imazighen have been assimilated into Arab society except in the Nafūsah Plateau region, Awjilah, Hūn, Socra, and Zuwārah. The Imazighen of Libya speak languages that are classified as Afro-Asiatic but have adopted the Arabic alphabet. Many are bilingual in Nafusi (an Amazigh language) and Arabic; most are Sunni Muslims. There is also a community of some 30,000 people once called Gypsies but known in North Africa as Dom (see also Roma), who speak Domari (an Indo-European language). Arab migrations to the region began with the rise of Islam in the 7th century. The initial Arab incursions were essentially military and had little effect upon the composition of the population. Oral tradition suggests that invasions of the Banū Hilāl in 1049 and the Banū Sulaym later in the 11th century took major migrations of nomadic tribes from eastern Arabia to Libya. However, scholarship later suggested that these movements too were not invasions but rather slow migrations of Arab peoples that occurred over several centuries. The Banū Sulaym were composed of four main groups—the Banū Hebib, the ʿAwf, the Debbab, and the Zegb. The Hebib settled in Cyrenaica, while the others went to Tripolitania. The arrival of these and other Arab groups led to political upheaval and the steady Arabization of Libya’s Amazigh populations. The result was that by the 20th century the great majority of Libya’s inhabitants were Arabic-speaking Muslims of mixed descent. Several other social groups exist alongside the tribes. Among these are the sharifs (holy tribes), who came originally from the Fezzan. The sharifs claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad; their alleged blood relationship with the Prophet gives them a powerful standing in Muslim society. Extensive tracts of land in the oases of western Libya are under sharifian control. The marabouts (Muslim religious leaders credited with supernatural powers) arrived in Libya from Saguia el-Hamra, in what is now Western Sahara. The maraboutic tribes are descended from holy men who also claimed a privileged relationship with Muhammad. They believed in an ascetic life, manifested by their hermit lifestyle. In areas where their teachings and way of life made them acceptable to the local inhabitants, they settled and founded tribes pledged to the pure way of life. The Koulouglis are descended from the Janissaries (elite Turkish soldiers who ruled Libya following the Ottoman conquest) and the Amazigh and Christian slave women with whom they intermarried. They have served since Ottoman times as a scribal class and are concentrated in and around villages and towns. They speak Arabic and practice Islam. The trans-Saharan slave trade, which continued through the early 20th century, took black Africans and their cultures to Libya, particularly to the Fezzan and Tripolitania. Though they previously spoke Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo languages of the central Sahara and eastern Sudan, today they speak Arabic and have adopted Islam. Small groups of Tuareg nomads live in the southwest, especially around the oases of Ghadāmis and Ghāt. They are gradually assuming a sedentary lifestyle. In the southeast, isolated nomadic Teda (Tubu) communities are slowly gravitating toward the north and the Al-Kufrah oasis in search of employment. Religion Most Libyans are Muslim, and the vast majority are Sunnis. There are also very small minorities of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. In Cyrenaica the influence of the Sanūsiyyah, a 19th-century militant Islamic brotherhood, remains strong. Although a Jewish minority was long established in Tripolitania, most Jews left the country in the late 1960s, many of them immigrating to Italy. Settlement patterns The majority of the population lives in Tripolitania, mainly in Tripoli and other cities along the coast and on the Nafūsah Plateau. A smaller proportion of the people live in Cyrenaica, primarily in Banghāzī and other coastal cities. The remainder of the population is found in the oasis towns of the Fezzan. The vast majority of the rural population lives in oases on the coast and is engaged in irrigation farming; plots of land are usually small and held in individual ownership. On the Nafūsah Plateau, however, where water is less readily available, a sophisticated agrarian system based on olive- and fruit-tree cultivation and associated livestock raising has evolved. In Cyrenaica, the premodern economy was based on nomadic and seminomadic pastoralism. Arable farming has largely been an adjunct of the pastoral system, with shifting dry-land cultivation rarely entailing sedentary farming. In this zone, land ownership is no longer exclusively communal. In southern Libya, isolated irrigated farming in the oases constitutes a third economic system with roots in the premodern era. The most common mode of life in rural Libya is sedentary cultivation. In the oases most farmers rely on irrigation, and water is raised from shallow wells either by the animal-powered dalū (a goatskin bag drawn by rope over a pulley) or, increasingly, by electric or diesel pumps. Landholdings in the oases are small and fragmented; the average farm of five to seven acres (two to three hectares) is usually divided into three or four separate parcels. In the coastal regions, lowland farmers normally live on their own plots but enjoy rights to graze stock and undertake shifting grain cultivation on communally held land. In Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, most Arab farmers tend to live on plots of between 12 and 600 acres (5 and 240 hectares) that were once part of large estates belonging to Italian settlers. Pastoral nomadism is practiced in the arid and semiarid regions, particularly in the Akhḍar Mountains and surrounding steppe lands in Cyrenaica. Nomadic groups subsist primarily on their herds of sheep, goats, and camels but also practice shifting cereal cultivation. These Bedouins move south as soon as pasture sprouts in the fall and remain there until the grasslands disappear and necessitate their return to the northern hills. Fixed, permanently occupied villages were not typical features of nomadic life among the Bedouins of the Libyan steppe and desert, although towns have existed in the coastal zones since Phoenician, Greek, and Roman times. With the arrival of the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, however, the new authorities founded towns and villages in the hinterland and desert that served as military posts or administrative centres; some of these sites have been occupied ever since. Other smaller, temporary settlements began as gathering places for nomadic tribes during periods of summer residence in the oases or in pastures in the hills. In the west, however, Amazigh populations are thought to have maintained a more or less continuous series of fortified nucleated villages in the western Nafūsah Plateau. In the southern oases, the villages served both as defense posts for the scattered communities and as watering and provisioning points on the trans-Saharan caravan routes. Since independence and the discovery of oil in the mid-20th century, economic development has led to the expansion of villages into towns and has attracted migrants from rural areas to these growing urban centres. The two main cities are Tripoli and Banghāzī. They contain about one-third of the country’s entire urban population and about one-fourth of the total population. Tripoli, with a metropolitan population of more than two million people, is the de facto political capital and the most important economic centre. Banghāzī, with its metropolitan area of more than one million people, is the primary city in Cyrenaica. The modern cities have developed around the old city centres (medinas), with satellite towns and villages in surrounding oases. Shantytowns housing recent rural-to-urban migrants are also found near the two cities, although the government has built low-income housing. Other important centres include Gharyān, Al-Khums, Miṣrātah, Tājūrāʾ, Sūq al-Jumʿah, Janzūr, and Al-Zāwiyah in the west and Ajdābiyā, Al-Marj, Al-Bayḍāʾ, Darnah, and Tobruk (Ṭubruq) in the east. These cities are primarily regional administrative and commercial centres with some light industry. Several have petroleum refineries and petrochemical installations. Demographic trends Libya’s rate of population growth is among the highest in North Africa. The influx of foreign workers into the country since the 1960s accounts for part of this rapid growth, but Libya’s annual rate of natural increase (birth rate minus death rate) has also been quite high. In the late 20th century and into the early 21st, death rates steadily declined to substantially below the world average, but birth rates remained relatively high. On the whole, Libya’s population is quite young: more than two-thirds of the population is younger than 30 years of age; of that, about one-third is younger than 15. Libya’s infant mortality rate is the lowest in continental Africa and far below the global rate, portending continued rapid growth well into the 21st century. Economy Libya’s per capita income is among the highest in Africa. Oil revenues remain Libya’s main source of income; at the beginning of the 21st century, oil and natural gas together accounted for almost three-fourths of the national income and nearly all of the country’s export earnings, although they employed less than one-tenth of the labour force. Under Muammar al-Qaddafi (1969–2011), the government exerted strong control over the economy; the petroleum industry was nationalized in the 1970s, and state trade unions and industrial organizations ran most other industries and utilities. To reduce the country’s heavy dependence on oil, economic policy has emphasized agricultural and industrial developments. Declining oil revenues during the 1980s, however, led to frequent revisions and delays in planned developments. Domestic reforms designed to liberalize economic policy and encourage private enterprise, begun in the late 1980s, continued into the 21st century. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing Agriculture is limited by the environment and by shortages of labour. Only about 1 percent of the total land area is cultivated, mostly on the Al-Jifārah and Barce plains, and about one-tenth of that is irrigated. An additional almost one-tenth of the land is in pasture. Agricultural development by land reclamation and irrigation is a government priority. The largest projects are at the Al-Kufrah oasis, Tāwurghāʾ, and Sarīr, on the Al-Jifārah Plain, and in the Akhḍar Mountains. The Great Man-Made River project, begun at the end of the 20th century, is the most ambitious undertaking. Pipelines will carry water from wells in the southern Sahara to Tripoli, Surt, Banghāzī, Tobruk, and the Al-Kufrah oasis. Aerial view of the circular irrigation system at Al-Kufrah oasis, southeastern Libya. Aerial view of the circular irrigation system at Al-Kufrah oasis, southeastern Libya. Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center Cereals are the major crops throughout the country. Wheat (grown primarily on the eastern and western plateaus) is the largest cereal crop, although barley, which adapts well to different climates and soils, is also a chief cereal and remains a dietary staple. In addition, sorghum is raised in the Fezzan. Olive plantations were introduced by the Italians on the Al-Jifārah Plain and on the Nafūsah Plateau, and there are smaller olive groves in the east. Orchards of almonds, citrus fruit, apricots, and figs grow on small and large farms and on small, crowded plots in the oases. Dates are the principal crop of the southern oases. Grapes, broad beans, and peanuts (groundnuts) also are grown. Tobacco is raised in Tripolitania. Animal husbandry is important in Cyrenaica, where the herds are raised on communal grazing lands. Livestock includes sheep, goats, cattle, camels, horses, mules, and donkeys. Animals are raised for their milk, meat, and hides or for their services as a means of transportation. Cattle often serve as draft animals. A small amount of milk is produced commercially, and commercial poultry farms are developing around the larger cities. Less than 1 percent of the land is covered by forest. Prior to the 1950s, Libya’s sole wooded area lay in the Akhḍar Mountains. Since then, the government has launched a massive forestation program. Between 1957 and 1964, for example, 27 million acacia, eucalyptus, cypress, cedar, and pine trees were planted in Tripolitania. There is little demand in Libya for fish, and most fishing is done off the Tripolitanian coast by Libyan, Tunisian, Greek, and Maltese fishermen. The catch includes tuna, sardines, and red mullet. Sponge beds are also important. The sponges are harvested mainly by Greeks licensed by the Libyan government. Resources and power Petroleum was first discovered in Libya in 1956 near the Algerian border and is Libya’s most important mineral resource. Subsequent finds have been mainly concentrated in onshore reserves located in the Sirte Basin. The major oil fields there include the Bahi, Dahra, and Samāḥ fields, in the west of the basin; the Dafʿ-Wāḥah (Defa-Waha) and Nasser fields, in the north-centre; and the Āmāl, Intiṣār, and Sarīr fields, located toward the east. Additional deposits have been located elsewhere in the country, including near Ghadāmis on the western border, Murzuq in the southwest, and the Al-Kufrah oasis in the southeast. Exploration for new deposits has concentrated on Tripolitania and offshore, where a large field was discovered northwest of Tripoli in 1988. Libya’s proven oil reserves represent a large part of Africa’s total reserves and about 3 percent of the world’s total reserves. Libyan crude oil is low in sulfur content and therefore causes less corrosion and less pollution than most crude oils, which has made it popular in countries that have imposed stringent emissions standards. The deposits are associated with natural gas. The first pipeline was constructed from the Zalṭan (later Nasser) field to Marsā al-Burayqah in 1961. Since then, additional lines have been built from Dahra to Al-Sidrah and to Raʾs al-Unūf; other pipelines connect the Tobruk field to Marsā al-Ḥarīqah and the Intiṣār field to Al-Zuwaytīnah. Refineries are located at Al-Zāwiyah, Miṣrātah, Raʾs al-Unūf, and Tobruk. A natural-gas pipeline runs parallel to the oil pipeline from Nasser. The gas liquefaction plant at Marsā al-Burayqah is one of the world’s largest. Sales of Libyan oil to Europe were enhanced by the closure of the Suez Canal between 1967 and 1975. During the 1980s, however, production and revenues declined because of an increased supply of oil on the world market. The oil industry experienced a resurgence in the first decade of the 21st century as Qaddafi began to take steps to liberalize the Libyan economy and reduce the country’s international isolation. After the uprising that removed Qaddafi from power in 2011, however, political instability and factional fighting caused wide fluctuations in oil production. Other mineral resources are limited. There are important deposits of natron (hydrated sodium carbonate) in the Fezzan and potash in Al-Ḥamrāyah Desert near Marādah. Iron ore deposits at Shāṭiʾ, although low in iron content, supply the iron-steel complex at Miṣrātah. Marine salt is produced in Tripolitania, where there are also small deposits of gypsum, manganese, and lignite coal. Sulfur has been found in Al-Ḥamrāyah Desert, and there are scattered deposits of chalk, limestone, and marble that are quarried for the growing construction trade. The production of electricity for public consumption is a government monopoly. There are also private plants, such as the 25,000-kilowatt facility built by an oil company at Marsā al-Burayqah. The total installed capacity, all thermal plants powered by oil, grew more than sevenfold during the 1970s. In the early 21st century, efforts were under way to convert Libya’s thermal plants from oil to natural gas in order to maximize petroleum available for export. Manufacturing Industrial development is limited, although it expanded during the United Nations (UN) embargo of the country in the 1990s. Most factories are located in Tripoli and Banghāzī and are managed by Arabs. The industrial workforce is small, with many factories employing fewer than 100 people. A majority of the factories manufacture processed food, cement, and textiles. There are also oil-related industries, which produce steel drums, tanks, and pipe fittings; petrochemical plants are located near refineries. Finance and trade Financial services are headed by the Central Bank of Libya, which supervises the banking system, regulates credit and interest policies, and issues the national currency, the Libyan dinar. The Libyan Arab Foreign Bank has made some investments, primarily in Italy. Since 1963, Libya has usually enjoyed a favourable balance of trade. Almost all its exports are represented by crude petroleum, but agricultural products and hides and skins also are exported. Imports consist of equipment for the oil and construction industries, farm machinery, consumer goods, and agricultural products. Most of the country’s imports come from Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and South Korea. Exports, almost all petroleum, usually go to Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Tunisia, and Turkey. Services A large proportion of the Libyan workforce is engaged in the service industries. The country’s tourism industry, largely underdeveloped during Libya’s period under UN sanctions, has undergone significant expansion. In order to promote the growth of tourism, government finances were increasingly dedicated to the construction of hotels and tourist complexes and to the development of coastal areas. Labour Independent trade unions were not permitted in Libya during the Qaddafi era. Libyan labourers were instead organized under the country’s single government-controlled association, the National Trade Unions’ Federation, with the exception of foreign workers, who were not permitted to participate. Factional chaos in the aftermath of Qaddafi’s ouster largely prevented the emergence of an effective organized labour movement. The majority of Libya’s labour force is employed in the services, with smaller proportions of the working population employed in various other sectors, including manufacturing and agriculture. Libyans are increasingly unable to rely upon employment with the state, where many once sought work. Rates of unemployment are generally high, especially among the country’s youth. At the beginning of the 21st century, women participated actively in the labour force, although discrimination in the workplace remained. A large number of foreign migrant workers—mostly from sub-Saharan African countries—participate in the Libyan economy, particularly in agriculture and industry. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Libya periodically sought the repatriation of much of its unlicensed migrant population, citing its role in the high level of unemployment among Libyan youth; statements calling for the expulsion of the migrant community, however, were in general not fully implemented. Transportation and telecommunications The main road is the 1,100-mile (1,170-km) national coastal highway between the borders of Tunisia and Egypt. The Sabhā road runs from the coastal highway at Al-Qaddāḥiyyah south and southwest to Ghāt near the Algerian border. Other national roads run from Tripoli to Ghāt and Sabhā and from Ajdābiyā to Al-Kufrah. More than half the country’s roads are paved. The two railroads that served Tripoli and Banghāzī were closed in the late 1960s. Tripoli is the main port, and Tripoli and Banghāzī together handle most of the country’s maritime trade. Tripoli handles the bulk of the imports, particularly those associated with the oil industry and the booming trade in consumer goods. There is also an important port located at Tobruk. Petroleum is shipped from Al-Sidrah, Marsā al-Burayqah, Tobruk, and Al-Zuwaytīnah. Miṣrātah, Zuwārah, and Al-Khums have been developed as fishing ports. Libya’s merchant fleet is modest, and most oil is shipped in foreign vessels. The country has several international airports, located in Tripoli, Banīnah (outside Banghāzī), Sabhā, and Miṣrātah. Domestic airfields include those at Marsā al-Burayqah, Tobruk, Al-Bayḍāʾ, Ghadāmis, and Ghāt. The Libyan Arab Airlines and foreign airlines operate domestic flights and services to countries in the Middle East and North Africa and to several countries in Europe. There are also domestic flights operated by the oil companies. At the beginning of the 21st century, Libyan telecommunications services continued to reach a rather low proportion of that country’s population. The number of telephone main lines increased during the late 1990s. A mobile telephone system was set up in the mid-1990s, and Internet access increased in the early years of the 21st century. onstitutional framework In September 1969 the monarchy of Idris I was overthrown and the constitution suspended in a military coup d’état. In 1977 the 12-member Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) formed after the coup was replaced by the General Secretariat of the General People’s Congress (GPC), with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi as secretary-general. He resigned the post in 1979 but remained the de facto ruler of the country and head of the revolution until he was forced from power by an uprising in 2011. Under the rule of Qaddafi, Libya was an authoritarian state, although it was theoretically governed by the masses through a series of councils. Qaddafi’s original revolutionary cabinet, the Council of Ministers, was replaced in 1977 by the General People’s Committee; each of the committee’s members served as the secretary of a department. The secretary of the General People’s Committee served as the head of government. In 1988 all but 2 of the 19 secretariats were moved from Tripoli, most of them to Surt. The General People’s Congress served as a parliament. Following the 2011 uprising, a transitional council made up of opposition figures assumed leadership. A multitude of militia groups, however, refused to disarm or be integrated into the national armed forces. Insecurity and factional rivalries soon became the main obstacles to the establishment of a stable permanent government. Local government The country is divided into shaʿbiyyāt (municipalities), which in turn are subdivided into smaller administrative units. Under Qaddafi, Libyan citizens were members of more than 500 “basic popular congresses,” each headed by an appointed revolutionary committee. Delegates came together in a General People’s Congress on the national level. There were no recognized political parties. Justice Under Qaddafi, the judicial system consisted of the Supreme Court, located in Tripoli, with five chambers of five justices each; it served as the final court of appeal. Regional courts of appeal, located in Tripoli, Banghāzī, and Sabhā, each with three justices, heard appeals from the courts of first instance and from summary courts, the basic judicial unit, each with one justice per court. Separate religious courts were abolished in 1973, and all judicial courts based their rulings on Libyan law, derived from the Sharīʿah (Islamic law). Political process Qaddafi instituted a government made up of a pyramid-shaped system of congresses and committees topped by the RCC and the GPC. The system’s broad base allowed for the wide participation of Libyan citizens, with each group active in the selection of the tier above it. Although in principle governmental ideals called for significant decentralization, Libya’s political system was in fact quite centralized. A variety of organizations, including a number of Islamic and pro-democracy groups, opposed the government. Women held seats in the General People’s Committee, albeit in a small proportion. Security Related Places Ghāt Sirtica Al-Marj North Africa Maghrib Sabratha Caliphate Wādī ash-Shāṭiʾ Al-Zāwiyah Nafūsah Plateau Libya’s armed forces include an army, a navy, and an air force. After the 1970s Libya purchased arms from the Soviet Union and other communist states. Beginning in the mid-1980s, however, military expenditures and arms imports declined. Although Libya had long provided a base and support for foreign militant organizations, by the late 1990s Qaddafi’s policies began to shift. In 2003 he formally renounced terrorism as part of a broader effort to bring the country back into the global community. Internally, however, Qaddafi created a variety of military and quasi-military organizations over the years that reinforced his authority within the country. Initially important were the People’s Militia and the Revolutionary Committees, created in 1974 and 1977, respectively. Qaddafi subsequently invested substantial wealth and effort into creating more personal security organizations, such as the Intelligence Bureau of the Leader, the Military Secret Service, the Jamāhīriyyah Security Organization, the Revolutionary Guards, and the People’s Guard. Throughout his rule, Qaddafi relied on other informal groups to maintain stability and to protect himself and his interests. Test Your Knowledge Ruins of statues at Karnak, Egypt. History Buff Quiz After the deposal of Qaddafi, the tasks of ensuring security and keeping order fell to a patchwork of regional and tribal militias that emerged in Libya during the 2011 uprising and its aftermath. Those militias, even the ones nominally aligned with the transitional government, refused to be blended into a national force or to submit to centralized authority. Violent clashes between rival militias were commonplace. Health and welfare The chief health problems are typhoid, leishmaniasis, rabies, meningitis, and schistosomiasis (a parasitic infestation of the liver or intestines). The incidence of malaria has declined, but gastroenteritis and tetanus remain major diseases. Health care is provided by a mixture of public and private services. Most care is available in hospitals and at outpatient or specialized-care facilities or clinics. Schools for medicine and dentistry opened in the 1970s, but the rapid expansion of facilities necessitated the continued hiring of expatriate staff. The number of medical personnel has been sharply increased. Some graduate medical students study abroad. Libya’s six-month civil war in 2011 and the insecurity that followed strained the country’s health and social services, leaving many Libyans without adequate access to medical care. Housing Connect with Britannica Housing shortages in Libya intensified following independence owing to increased rates of urban migration. After coming to power, the RCC worked to expand adequate housing through a number of initiatives. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, funds from both public and private sources were directed toward construction projects to improve housing quality and alleviate the strain; nevertheless, shortages remained into the early 21st century. Some of the poorer migrant communities continue to live in informal settlements on the outskirts of a number of the country’s urban areas. Education Public education is free, although insecurity since the fall of the Qaddafi regime in 2011 has caused disruptions to schools and universities in many areas of the country. Arabic is the language of instruction at all levels. The school system is composed of a six-year primary level, a three-year intermediate and vocational level, and a three-year secondary and advanced vocational level. There are also Qurʾānic schools, financed by the government. About four-fifths of the adult population is literate. In order to increase the literacy rate, the government also sponsored an adult educational program. Higher education is offered by the state institutions of the University of Libya, subdivided in 1973 into Al-Fāteḥ University, located at Tripoli, and Garyounis (Qāryūnis) University, located at Banghāzī. Advanced religious training is obtained at a branch of the university at Al-Bayḍāʾ. Libyan students also study abroad. Cultural life Cultural milieu Cultural differences between the regions are significant. The population of the west is on the whole more cosmopolitan than that of the east and includes a higher proportion of people of Amazigh, Sub-Saharan African, and Turkish origin. Cyrenaica was profoundly affected by the teachings of the 19th-century Sanūsiyyah, an Islamic brotherhood, which had little influence in the west and south. The Fezzan was commercially and politically tied to the region historically known as the bilād al-sūdān (Arabic: “land of the black peoples”), which spanned the territory south of the Maghrib, Libya, and Egypt from West Africa to the Nilotic Sudan. Related Topics Libya bombings of 1986 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Arabic language OPEC Arab Spring Council of Arab Economic Unity flag of Libya Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa Great Man-Made River (GMR) Italo-Turkish War Since the 1969 coup, lifestyles have been strongly influenced by the revolutionary government’s restructuring of national and local government and its efforts to reduce the influence of the tribes. The government has also provided for the education of women and encouraged a broader participation by women in a number of capacities in mainstream Libyan society. The arts Libyan culture highlights folk art and traditions, which are highly influenced by Islam. The arts of weaving, embroidery, metal engraving, and leatherwork rarely depict people or animals because of the traditional Islamic prohibition against such representations. The dominant geometric and arabesque designs are best presented in the stucco and tiles of the Karamanli and Gurgi mosques of Tripoli. Other traditions include festivals, horse races, and folk dances. Nonreligious literature has developed largely since the 1960s; nationalistic in character, it nonetheless reveals Egyptian influences. The arts are supported by the government through the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Education and National Guidance, and the Al-Fikr Society, a group of intellectuals and professionals. Cultural institutions Libraries include the Government Library and the National Archives in Tripoli, the National Library of Libya and the Public Library, both in Banghāzī, the library of the Libyan Studies Centre, and the university libraries. The Department of Antiquities is responsible for the Archaeological Museum, the Leptis Magna Museum of Antiquities, the Natural History Museum, and the Sabratha Museum of Antiquities, all in Tripolitania, and the archaeological sites of Ptolemais and Appolonia in Cyrenaica. The Sabhā Museum contains exhibits of ancient remains from the Fezzan region. As part of a historical region valued by many successive empires, numerous rich cultural and archaeological sites are located in present-day Libya. The remains of the ancient cities of Cyrene, Leptis Magna, Sabratha, and Ghadāmis, as well as the ancient rock art at Tadrart Acacus, have all been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Leptis Magna, Libya. Remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Leptis Magna, Libya. © Pascal RATEAU/Fotolia Sports and recreation Football (soccer) is one of the most popular sports in Libya. The top national league includes a number of teams, and Tripoli and Banghāzī are each home to several clubs. Al-Ahlī of Tripoli has won numerous league titles since the 1960s. The national team was prohibited from participating in international competitions during the UN embargo, but the team returned to the world football stage in the spring of 1999 with an exhibition game against Senegal. Racing is very popular in Libya. Horse racing is a traditional part of many holiday celebrations, and automobile racing also has a strong following. Tripoli was once a stop on the Grand Prix tour; the 1933 race became infamous when several drivers conspired to fix it. Libyans also enjoy tennis, and water sports are gaining popularity on the coast. Libya made its Olympic debut at the 1968 Mexico City Games. Media and publishing The government controls broadcasting and the press. Newspapers and periodicals are published by the Jamahiriya News Agency (JANA), government secretariats, the Press Service, and trade unions. JANA publishes Al-Fajr al-Jadīd (“New Dawn”) in Tripoli. Daily newspapers include Al-Shams (“The Sun”) and Al-Zaḥf al-Akhḍar (“The Green March”). Radio broadcasts from Tripoli and Banghāzī are in Arabic and English; the national television service broadcasts in Arabic, with limited hours in English, Italian, and French. Several publishers of general and academic books are located in Tripoli. Dennis D. CordellMukhtar Mustafa BuruGary L. Fowler History This discussion focuses on Libya since the 18th century. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in its regional context, see North Africa. Largely desert with some limited potential for urban and sedentary life in the northwest and northeast, Libya has historically never been heavily populated or a power centre. Like that of its neighbour Algeria, Libya’s very name is a neologism, created by the conquering Italians early in the 20th century. Also like that of Algeria, much of Libya’s earlier history—not only in the Islamic period but even before—reveals that both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were more closely linked with neighbouring territories Tunisia and Egypt, respectively, than with each other. Even during the Ottoman era, the country was divided into two parts, one linked to Tripoli in the west and the other to Banghāzī in the east. Libya thus owes its present unity as a state less to earlier history or geographic characteristics than to several recent factors: the unifying effect of the Sanūsiyyah movement since the 19th century; Italian colonialism from 1911 until after World War II; an early independence by default, since the great powers could agree on no other solution; and the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the late 1950s. Yet the Sanūsiyyah is based largely in the eastern region of Cyrenaica and has never really penetrated the more populous northwestern region of Tripolitania. Italian colonization was brief and brutal. Moreover, most of the hard-earned gains in infrastructure implanted in the colonial period were destroyed by contending armies during World War II. Sudden oil wealth has been both a boon and a curse as changes to the political and social fabric, as well as to the economy, have accelerated. This difficult legacy of disparate elements and forces helps to explain the unique character of present-day Libya. Dennis D. CordellL. Carl Brown Ottoman rule Part of the Ottoman Empire from the early 16th century, Libya experienced autonomous rule (analogous to that in Ottoman Algeria and Tunisia) under the Karamanli dynasty from 1711 to 1835. In the latter year the Ottomans took advantage of a succession dispute and local disorder to reestablish direct administration. For the next 77 years the area was administered by officials from the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and shared in the limited modernization common to the rest of the empire. In Libya the most significant event of the period was the foundation in 1837 of the Sanūsiyyah, an Islamic order, or fraternity, that preached a puritanical form of Islam, giving the people instruction and material assistance and so creating among them a sense of unity. The first Sanūsī zāwiyah (monastic complex) in Libya was established in 1843 near the ruins of Cyrene in eastern Cyrenaica. The order spread principally in that province but also found adherents in the south. The Grand al-Sanūsī, as the founder came to be called, moved his headquarters to the oasis of Al-Jaghbūb near the Egyptian frontier, and in 1895 his son and successor, Sīdī Muḥammad Idrīs al-Mahdī, transferred it farther south into the Sahara to the oasis group of Al-Kufrah. Though the Ottomans welcomed the order’s opposition to the spread of French influence northward from Chad and Tibesti, they regarded with suspicion the political influence it exerted within Cyrenaica. In 1908 the Young Turk revolution gave a new impulse to reform; in 1911, however, the Italians, who had banking and other interests in the country, launched an invasion. The Ottomans sued for peace in 1912, but Italy found it more difficult to subdue the local population. Resistance to the Italian occupation continued throughout World War I. After the war Italy considered coming to terms with nationalist forces in Tripolitania and with the Sanūsiyyah, which was strong in Cyrenaica. These negotiations foundered, however, and the arrival of a strong governor, Giuseppe Volpi, in Libya and a Fascist government in Italy (1922) inaugurated an Italian policy of thorough colonization. The coastal areas of Tripolitania were subdued by 1923, but in Cyrenaica Sanūsī resistance, led by ʿUmar al-Mukhtār, continued until his capture and execution in 1931. Italian colonization In the 1920s and ’30s the Italian government expended large sums on developing towns, roads, and agricultural colonies for Italian settlers. The most ambitious effort was the program of Italian immigration called “demographic colonization,” launched by the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in 1935. As a result of these efforts, by the outbreak of World War II, some 150,000 Italians had settled in Libya and constituted roughly one-fifth of that country’s total population. These colonizing efforts and the resulting economic development of Libya were largely destroyed during the North Africa campaigns of 1941–43. Cyrenaica changed hands three times, and by the end of 1942 all of the Italian settlers had left. Cyrenaica largely reverted to pastoralism. Economic and administrative development fostered by Italy survived in Tripolitania; however, Libya by 1945 was impoverished, underpopulated, and also divided into regions—Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan—of differing political, economic, and religious traditions. Independence The future of Libya gave rise to long discussions after the war. In view of the contribution to the fighting made by a volunteer Sanūsī force, the British foreign minister pledged in 1942 that the Sanūsīs would not again be subjected to Italian rule. During the discussions, which lasted four years, suggestions included an Italian trusteeship, a United Nations (UN) trusteeship, a Soviet mandate for Tripolitania, and various compromises. Finally, in November 1949, the UN General Assembly voted that Libya should become a united and independent kingdom no later than January 1, 1952. A constitution creating a federal state with a separate parliament for each province was drawn up, and the pro-British head of the Sanūsiyyah, Sīdī Muḥammad Idrīs al-Mahdī al-Sanūsī, was chosen king by a national assembly in 1950. On December 24, 1951, King Idris I declared the country independent. Political parties were prohibited, and the king’s authority was sovereign. Though not themselves Sanūsīs, the Tripolitanians accepted the monarchy largely in order to profit from the British promise that the Sanūsīs would not again be subjected to Italian rule. King Idris, however, showed a marked preference for living in Cyrenaica, where he built a new capital on the site of the Sanūsī zāwiyah at Al-Bayḍāʾ. Though Libya joined the Arab League in 1953 and in 1956 refused British troops permission to land during the Suez Crisis, the government in general adopted a pro-Western position in international affairs. The discovery of oil With the discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959, Libya changed abruptly from being dependent on international aid and the rent from U.S. and British air bases to being an oil-rich monarchy. Major petroleum deposits in both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica ensured the country income on a vast scale. The discovery was followed by an enormous expansion in all government services, massive construction projects, and a corresponding rise in the economic standard and the cost of living. Precipitated by the king’s failure to speak out against Israel during the June War (1967), a coup was carried out on September 1, 1969, by a group of young army officers led by Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, who deposed the king and proclaimed Libya a republic. The new regime, passionately Pan-Arab, broke the monarchy’s close ties to Britain and the United States and also began an assertive policy that led to higher oil prices along with 51 percent Libyan participation in oil company activities and, in some cases, outright nationalization. The Qaddafi regime Equally assertive in plans for Arab unity, Libya obtained at least the formal beginnings of unity with Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia, but these and other such plans failed as differences arose between the governments concerned. Qaddafi’s Libya supported the Palestinian cause and intervened to support it, as well as other guerrilla and revolutionary organizations in Africa and the Middle East. Such moves alienated the Western countries and some Arab states. In July–August 1977 hostilities broke out between Libya and Egypt, and, as a result, many Egyptians working in Libya were expelled. Indeed, despite expressed concern for Arab unity, the regime’s relations with most Arab countries deteriorated. Qaddafi signed a treaty of union with Morocco’s King Hassan II in August 1984, but Hassan abrogated the treaty two years later. Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, 1999. Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, 1999. Marwan Naamani—AFP/Getty Images The regime, under Qaddafi’s ideological guidance, continued to introduce innovations. On March 2, 1977, the General People’s Congress declared that Libya was to be known as the People’s Socialist Libyan Arab Jamāhīriyyah (the latter term is a neologism meaning “government through the masses”). By the early 1980s, however, a drop in the demand and price for oil on the world market was beginning to hamper Qaddafi’s efforts to play a strong regional role. Ambitious efforts to radically change Libya’s economy and society slowed, and there were signs of domestic discontent. Libyan opposition movements launched sporadic attacks against Qaddafi and his military supporters but met with arrest and execution. Dennis D. CordellNevill BarbourL. Carl Brown Libya’s relationship with the United States, which had been an important trading partner, deteriorated in the early 1980s as the U.S. government increasingly protested Qaddafi’s support of Palestinian Arab militants. An escalating series of retaliatory trade restrictions and military skirmishes culminated in a U.S. bombing raid of Tripoli and Banghāzī in 1986, in which Qaddafi’s adopted daughter was among the casualties. U.S. claims that Libya was producing chemical warfare materials contributed to the tension between the two countries in the late 1980s and ’90s. Within the region, Libya sought throughout the 1970s and ’80s to control the mineral-rich Aozou strip along the disputed border with neighbouring Chad. These efforts produced intermittent warfare in Chad and confrontation with both France and the United States. In 1987 Libyan forces were bested by Chad’s more mobile troops, and diplomatic ties with that country were restored late the following year. Libya denied involvement in Chad’s December 1990 coup led by Idriss Déby (see Chad: Civil war). In 1996 the United States and the UN implemented a series of economic sanctions against Libya for its purported involvement in destroying a civilian airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. In the late 1990s, in an effort to placate the international community, Libya turned over the alleged perpetrators of the bombing to international authorities and accepted a ruling by the international court in The Hague stating that the contested Aozou territory along the border with Chad belonged to that country and not to Libya. The United Kingdom restored diplomatic relations with Libya at the end of the decade, and UN sanctions were lifted in 2003; later that year Libya announced that it would stop producing chemical weapons. The United States responded by dropping most of its sanctions, and the restoration of full diplomatic ties between the two countries was completed in 2006. In 2007 five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who had been sentenced to death in Libya after being tried on charges of having deliberately infected children there with HIV were extradited to Bulgaria and quickly pardoned by its president, defusing widespread outcry over the case and preventing the situation from posing an obstacle to Libya’s return to the international community. The five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor who had spent more than eight years in prison in Libya for allegedly having infected children there with HIV arrive on July 24 in Sofia, where Bulgarian Pres. Georgi Purvanov promptly pardoned them. Six health workers convicted of having deliberately infected Libyan children with HIV arrive in … AP In the years that followed the lifting of sanctions, one of Qaddafi’s sons, Sayf al-Islam al-Qaddafi, emerged as a proponent of reform and helped lead Libya toward adjustments in its domestic and foreign policy. Measures including efforts to attract Western business and plans to foster tourism promised to gradually draw Libya more substantially into the global community. L. Carl BrownDennis D. Cordell Revolt in 2011 In February 2011, in the midst of a wave of popular demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa, antigovernment rallies were held in Banghāzī by protesters angered by the arrest of a human rights lawyer, Fethi Tarbel. Libyan security forces used water cannons and live fire against the crowds, resulting in a number of injuries and deaths. Key sites of the 2011 Libya revolt. Key sites of the 2011 Libya revolt. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. As protests intensified, with demonstrators taking control of Banghāzī and unrest spreading to Tripoli and other areas of the country, the security forces and squads of mercenaries loyal to the government began to use lethal force freely, firing indiscriminately into crowds. The regime restricted communications, blocking the Internet and interrupting telephone service throughout the country. On February 21 one of Qaddafi’s sons, Sayf al-Islam, gave a defiant address on state television, blaming outside agitators for the unrest and saying that further demonstrations could lead to civil war in the country. He vowed that the regime would fight “to the last bullet.” The next day Muammar al-Qaddafi delivered an angry rambling speech on state television, condemning the protesters as traitors and calling on his supporters to fight them. Protesters at a rally in Banghāzī in March 2011 carrying the Libyan flag that was used from 1951 to 1969. The flag was adopted by the rebels in 2011. Protesters at a rally in Banghāzī in March 2011 carrying the Libyan flag that was used … Kevin Frayer/AP The government’s use of violence against civilians drew condemnation from foreign leaders and human rights organizations. It also seemed to damage the coherence of the regime, causing a number of high-level officials to resign in protest. A number of Libyan embassies around the world signaled their support for the uprising by flying Libya’s pre-Qaddafi flag. Within days of the first protests, the anti-Qaddafi movement began to evolve into an armed rebellion as demonstrators acquired weapons from abandoned government arms depots. By late February, rebel forces had expelled most pro-Qaddafi troops from the eastern portion of Libya, including the city of Banghāzī, and from many western cities. The Libyan-Egyptian border was opened, allowing foreign journalists into the country for the first time since the conflict began. Pro-Qaddafi paramilitary units continued to hold the city of Tripoli, where Qaddafi and his inner circle remained. International pressure for Qaddafi to step down gradually increased. On February 26 the UN Security Council unanimously approved a measure that included sanctions against the Qaddafi regime, imposing a travel ban and an arms embargo and freezing the Qaddafi family’s assets. The measure also referred the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The United States, the European Union, and a number of other countries also imposed sanctions. A rebel leadership council emerged in Banghāzī in early March. Known as the Transitional National Council (TNC), it declared that its aims would be to act as the rebellion’s military leadership and as the representative of the Libyan opposition, provide services in rebel-held areas, and guide the country’s transition to democratic government. In the weeks that followed, the conflict appeared to enter a stalemate and then to tilt in Qaddafi’s favour. Despite the rebels’ impressive gains in February, the Qaddafi regime still controlled enough soldiers and weapons to hold Tripoli and to stage fresh ground and air assaults which rebel fighters struggled to repel. Most fighting took place in the towns around Tripoli and in the central coastal region, where rebels and Qaddafi loyalists battled for control of the oil-export terminals on the Gulf of Sidra. A rebel firing a gun in the heavily contested city of Ajdābiyā in eastern Libya, March 6, 2011. The graffiti on the side of the truck reads, “Army of Libya.” A rebel firing a gun in the heavily contested city of Ajdābiyā in eastern Libya, March … Anja Niedringhaus/AP The international community continued to debate possible diplomatic and military intervention in the conflict. Countries worked to establish contact with the TNC and in some cases began to recognize it as Libya’s legitimate government. At an emergency summit on March 11 the European Union unanimously called for Qaddafi to step down. However, the international community remained divided over the possibility of military intervention. Some countries, including France and the United Kingdom, sought the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya to protect rebels and civilians from air attacks, while others, including the United States and Germany, expressed reservations, emphasizing the need for broad international consensus and warning against possible unforeseen consequences of military intervention. The African Union (AU) rejected any military intervention, asserting that the crisis should be resolved through negotiations, whereas the Arab League passed a resolution on March 13 calling on the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. On March 15 Qaddafi loyalists captured the eastern city of Ajdābiyā, the last large rebel-held city on the route to Banghāzī. As they advanced on the remaining rebel positions in Banghāzī and Tobruk in the east and Miṣrātah in the west, the UN Security Council voted on March 17 to authorize military action, including a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians. Beginning on March 19, an international coalition led by the U.S., France, and the United Kingdom began to carry out air and missile strikes to disable Libya’s air force and air defense systems so the no-fly zone could be imposed. Coalition missiles also struck buildings in a compound used by Qaddafi as a command centre. Within a week Libya’s air force and air defenses were out of commission. However, heavy fighting continued on the ground. Pro-Qaddafi units massed around the rebel-held city of Miṣrātah and the contested city of Ajdābiyā, shelling both and causing significant civilian casualties. Attacks by coalition warplanes soon weakened pro-Qaddafi ground forces in eastern Libya, allowing rebels to advance and retake Ajdābiyā, Marsa el-Brega, Ras Lanuf, and Bin Jawwad. On March 27 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officially took over command of military operations in Libya from the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The handover came after several days of debate among NATO countries over the limits of international military intervention; several countries argued that the coalition’s aggressive targeting of pro-Qaddafi ground forces had exceeded the mandate set by the UN Security Council to protect civilians. By April the conflict seemed to have returned to a stalemate; Qaddafi’s troops, though weakened by the coalition assault, still appeared strong enough to prevent the disorganized and poorly equipped rebels from achieving decisive victories. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis intensified, with an AU delegation traveling to Tripoli on April 10 to present a cease-fire plan that was quickly rejected by both sides. On April 30 a NATO air strike on a house in Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli killed Qaddafi’s youngest son, Sayf al-Arab, along with three of Qaddafi’s grandchildren. Qaddafi was present at the site of the strike but avoided injury. More strikes in early May targeted government buildings associated with Qaddafi and Libya’s senior military leadership, but NATO representatives denied claims that NATO had adopted a strategy of trying to kill Qaddafi and other high-ranking Libyan officials. International pressure on Qaddafi continued to build. The ICC, which in early March had opened an investigation into alleged war crimes by members of the Qaddafi regime, announced on May 16 that it would seek arrest warrants against Qaddafi, his son Sayf al-Islam, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah Senussi, for ordering attacks on civilians in Libya. In August 2011 rebel forces advanced to the outskirts of Tripoli, taking control of strategic areas, including the city of Zāwiyah, the site of one of Libya’s largest oil refineries. Rebels soon advanced into Tripoli, taking over some areas of the capital on August 22. The next day, rebel forces established control over most of the city and captured the Bāb al-ʿAzīziyyah compound, Qaddafi’s headquarters. Rebels raised Libya’s pre-Qaddafi flag over the compound while jubilant crowds destroyed symbols of Qaddafi, whose whereabouts were unknown. By early September rebel forces had solidified their control of Tripoli, and the TNC began to transfer its operations to the capital. Qaddafi remained in hiding, occasionally issuing defiant audio messages. In the few remaining cities under loyalist control, rebels attempted to negotiate with loyalist commanders to surrender and avoid a bloody ground assault. In late September rebel forces began to advance into Banī Walīd and Surt, the two remaining strongholds of Qaddafi loyalists. On October 20 Qaddafi was captured and killed in Surt by rebel fighters. (For coverage of unrest in Libya in 2011 and the aftermath in 2012, see Libya Revolt of 2011.) Postrevolutionary chaos The TNC struggled to establish a functional government and exert its authority in the months that followed the fall of the Qaddafi regime. Local rebel militias that had fought autonomously during the uprising, especially those in western Libya, were reluctant to submit to an interim government formed in eastern Libya with little input from the rest of the country and were suspicious of some TNC officials’ past ties to the Qaddafi regime. The militias refused to disarm, and skirmishes between rival militias became commonplace. Elections to choose the members of a 200-seat assembly, the General National Congress (GNC), were held in July 2012 in spite of occasional outbursts of violence caused by local and regional power struggles. The National Forces Alliance, a secular party led by Mahmoud Jibril, a former TNC official and interim prime minister, won the largest number of seats. New concerns about Libya’s stability arose in September 2012 when members of the militant Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia launched a surprise attack on the U.S. consulate in Banghāzī, killing four Americans including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. Within the GNC there were disputes over the assembly’s functions and mandate, and boycotts threatened its overall viability. The divisions between armed groups continued to deepen—with steadily increasing bloodshed—as the central government proved unable to control even those that were nominally aligned with government ministries. In an episode that seemed to encapsulate the disordered state of Libyan politics, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was briefly kidnapped in October 2013 by militia members aligned with the ministries of defense and the interior. He was quickly released unharmed. Groups also sought to exact concessions from the central government by disrupting oil production, its main source of revenue. Strikes by disgruntled oil workers caused fluctuations in production in early 2013. Later in the year, a militia commanded by Ibrahim Jathran, a former rebel commander, seized several oil terminals and demanded greater autonomy and a greater share of oil revenues for eastern Libya. Jathran’s attempts to sell oil independently from the central government were thwarted in 2014 when the U.S. Navy seized a tanker carrying oil from one of the ports under his control, and he was ultimately forced to relinquish the oil facilities he held. Attacks on oil infrastructure by a variety of armed groups continued, however, and oil revenues fluctuated accordingly. In May 2014 Khalifah Haftar, a general acting without authorization from the central government, led forces under his control in a campaign dubbed Operation Dignity against Islamists and other groups aligned with Islamists in eastern Libya. Haftar also condemned the GNC as dominated by Islamists, and fighters loyal to him made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the parliament building in Tripoli in May. In June a new national assembly was elected to replace the GNC, whose 18-month mandate had officially expired in February. Security concerns and voter disillusionment held turnout to less than 20 percent. The election delivered a resounding victory for liberal and secular candidates, although the viability of the new assembly, called the House of Representatives, remained uncertain. The emergence of Haftar’s Operation Dignity had the effect of heightening polarization between Islamist-aligned and non-Islamist forces, pushing the country closer to a new civil war. In western Libya a coalition of armed groups opposed to Haftar’s Operation Dignity began to appear in mid-2014. Operating under the name Libya Dawn, the new coalition was largely Islamist in orientation, and it rejected the authority of the newly elected House of Representatives in favour of the outgoing GNC. In August, with the backing of Libya Dawn militias, members of the GNC convened in Tripoli and declared themselves the legitimate national assembly of Libya. The internationally recognized House of Representatives, meanwhile, was forced to convene in the eastern city of Tobruk, under the protection of Haftar’s troops.Libya (Arabic: ليبيا‎‎ Lībiyā[6][7]) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. The country is made of three historical regions, Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, and is the 16th largest country in the world.[8] Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world.[9] The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over one million[10] of Libya's six million people. The other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age. The Phoenicians established trading posts in western Libya, and ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Carthaginians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks before becoming a part of the Roman Empire. Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, when invasions brought Islam and Arab colonization. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1943. During the Second World War Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign. The Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951. A military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of sweeping social reform. The most prominent coup figure, Muammar Gaddafi, was ultimately able to fully concentrate power in his own hands during the Libyan Cultural Revolution, remaining in power until the Libyan Civil War of 2011, in which the rebels were supported by NATO.[11] Since then, Libya has experienced a period of instability. The European Union is involved in an operation to disrupt human trafficking networks exploiting refugees fleeing from wars in Africa for Europe.[12][13] At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya. The Council of Deputies is one such government, but it does not hold territory in the capital, Tripoli, instead meeting in the Cyrenaica city of Tobruk. Meanwhile, the UN-backed 2014 General National Congress purports to be the legal continuation of the General National Congress, elected in the 2012 Libyan General National Congress election and dissolved following the June 2014 elections but then reconvened by a minority of its members.[14][15] The Supreme Court in the Libya Dawn and General National Congress-controlled Tripoli declared the Tobruk government unconstitutional in November 2014,[16] but the body has rejected the ruling as made under threat of violence.[17] Parts of Libya are outside of either government's control, with various Islamist, rebel, and tribal militias administering some cities and areas.[18] The United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions.[19] An agreement to form a unified interim government was signed on 17 December 2015.[20] Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council and a seventeen-member interim Government of National Accord would be formed, with a view to holding new elections within two years.[20][21] The leaders of the new government, called the Government of National Accord (GNA), arrived in Tripoli on 5 April 2016. Since then the GNC, one of the two rival governments, has disbanded to support the new GNAThe name Libya (Listeni/ˈlɪbiə/ or /ˈlɪbjə/; Arabic: ليبيا‎‎ Līb(i)yā [ˈliːb(i)jæ] ( listen); Libyan Arabic: [ˈliːbjæ]) was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the historical name for Northwest Africa, from the ancient Greek Λιβύη (Libúē).[23] The name was based on earlier use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli.[24] It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania, the coastal region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911, as the Eyalet of Tripolitania. Libya gained independence in 1951 as the United Libyan Kingdom (Arabic: المملكة الليبية المتحدة‎‎ al-Mamlakah al-Lībiyyah al-Muttaḥidah), changing its name to the Kingdom of Libya (Arabic: المملكة الليبية‎‎ al-Mamlakah al-Lībiyyah) in 1963.[25] Following a coup d'état led by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969, the name of the state was changed to the Libyan Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية الليبية‎‎ al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah). The official name was "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" from 1977 to 1986, and "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"[26] (Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية العظمى‎‎[27] al-Jamāhīriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah ash-Sha‘biyyah al-Ishtirākiyyah al-‘Uẓmá About this sound listen (help·info)) from 1986 to 2011. The National Transitional Council, established in 2011, referred to the state as simply "Libya". The UN formally recognized the country as "Libya" in September 2011,[28] based on a request from the Permanent Mission of Libya citing the Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration of 3 August 2011. In November 2011, the ISO 3166-1 was altered to reflect the new country name "Libya" in English, "Libye (la)" in French.[29] History Main article: History of Libya Ancient Libya Main article: Ancient Libya The temple of Zeus in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene The coastal plain of Libya was inhabited by Neolithic peoples from as early as 8000 BC. The Afroasiatic ancestors of the Berber people are assumed to have spread into the area by the Late Bronze Age. The earliest known name of such a tribe is that of the Garamantes, who were based in Germa. The Phoenicians were the first to establish trading posts in Libya.[30] By the 5th century BC, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, Carthage, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being. In 630 BC, the ancient Greeks colonized Eastern Libya and founded the city of Cyrene.[31] Within 200 years, four more important Greek cities were established in the area that became known as Cyrenaica.[32] In 525 BC the Persian army of Cambyses II overran Cyrenaica, which for the next two centuries remained under Persian or Egyptian rule. Alexander the Great was greeted by the Greeks when he entered Cyrenaica in 331 BC, and Eastern Libya again fell under the control of the Greeks, this time as part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. After the fall of Carthage the Romans did not immediately occupy Tripolitania (the region around Tripoli), but left it under control of the kings of Numidia, until the coastal cities asked and obtained its protection.[33] Ptolemy Apion, the last Greek ruler, bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome, which formally annexed the region in 74 BC and joined it to Crete as a Roman province. As part of the Africa Nova province, Tripolitania was prosperous,[33] and reached a golden age in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when the city of Leptis Magna, home to the Severan dynasty, was at its height.[33] On the Eastern side, Cyrenaica's first Christian communities were established by the time of the Emperor Claudius[34] but was heavily devastated during the Kitos War[35] and almost depopulated of Greeks and Jews alike,[36] and, although repopulated by Trajan with military colonies,[35] from then started its decline.[34] Libya was early to convert to Nicene Christianity and was the home of Pope Victor I; however, Libya was a hotbed for early heresies such as Arianism and Donatism. The decline of the Roman Empire saw the classical cities fall into ruin, a process hastened by the Vandals' destructive sweep through North Africa in the 5th century. When the Empire returned (now as East Romans) as part of Justinian's reconquests of the 6th century, efforts were made to strengthen the old cities, but it was only a last gasp before they collapsed into disuse. Cyrenaica, which had remained an outpost of the Byzantine Empire during the Vandal period, also took on the characteristics of an armed camp. Unpopular Byzantine governors imposed burdensome taxation to meet military costs, while the towns and public services—including the water system—were left to decay. By the beginning of the 7th century, Byzantine control over the region was weak, Berber rebellions were becoming more frequent, and there was little to oppose Muslim invasion.[37] Islamic Libya Main article: History of Islamic Tripolitania and Cyrenaica The Atiq Mosque in Awjila is the oldest mosque in the Sahara. Under the command of 'Amr ibn al-'As, the Rashidun army conquered Cyrenaica.[38] In 647 an army led by Abdullah ibn Saad took Tripoli from the Byzantines definitively.[38] The Fezzan was conquered by Uqba ibn Nafi in 663. The Berber tribes of the hinterland accepted Islam, however they resisted Arab political rule.[39] For the next several decades, Libya was under the purview of the Umayyad Caliph of Damascus until the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750, and Libya came under the rule of Baghdad. When Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab as his governor of Ifriqiya in 800, Libya enjoyed considerable local autonomy under the Aghlabid dynasty. By the end of the 9th century, the Shiite Fatimids controlled Western Libya, and ruled the entire region in 972 and appointed Bologhine ibn Ziri as governor.[33] Ibn Ziri's Berber Zirid dynasty ultimately broke away from the Shiite Fatimids, and recognised the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad as rightful Caliphs. In retaliation, the Fatimids brought about the migration of thousands from two troublesome Arab Bedouin tribes, the Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal to North Africa. This act drastically altered the fabric of the Libyan countryside, and cemented the cultural and linguistic Arabisation of the region.[33] Zirid rule in Tripolitania was short-lived though, and already in 1001 the Berbers of the Banu Khazrun broke away. Tripolitania remained under their control until 1146, when the region was overtaken by the Normans of Sicily.[40] It was not until 1159 that the Moroccan Almohad leader Abd al-Mu'min reconquered Tripoli from European rule. For the next 50 years, Tripolitania was the scene of numerous battles among Ayyubids, the Almohad rulers and insurgents of the Banu Ghaniya. Later, a general of the Almohads, Muhammad ibn Abu Hafs, ruled Libya from 1207 to 1221 before the later establishment of a Tunisian Hafsid dynasty[40] independent from the Almohads. The Hafsids ruled Tripolitania for nearly 300 years. By the 16th century the Hafsids became increasingly caught up in the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire. After weakening control of Abbasids, Cyrenaica was under Egypt based states such as Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Ayyubids and Mamluks before Ottoman conquest in 1517. Finally Fezzan acquired independence under Awlad Muhammad dynasty after Kanem rule. Ottomans finally conquered Fezzan between 1556 and 1577. Ottoman Tripolitania (1551–1911) Main article: Ottoman Tripolitania The Siege of Tripoli in 1551 allowed the Ottomans to capture the city from the Knights of St. John After a successful invasion of Tripoli by Habsburg Spain in 1510,[40] and its handover to the Knights of St. John, the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha took control of Libya in 1551.[40] His successor Turgut Reis was named the Bey of Tripoli and later Pasha of Tripoli in 1556. By 1565, administrative authority as regent in Tripoli was vested in a pasha appointed directly by the sultan in Constantinople/Istanbul. In the 1580s, the rulers of Fezzan gave their allegiance to the sultan, and although Ottoman authority was absent in Cyrenaica, a bey was stationed in Benghazi late in the next century to act as agent of the government in Tripoli.[34] European slaves and large numbers of enslaved Blacks transported from Sudan were also a feature of everyday life in Tripoli. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved almost the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, some 6,300 people, sending them to Libya.[41][page needed] In time, real power came to rest with the pasha’s corps of janissaries.[40] In 1611 the deys staged a coup against the pasha, and Dey Sulayman Safar was appointed as head of government. For the next hundred years, a series of deys effectively ruled Tripolitania. The two most important Deys were Mehmed Saqizli (r. 1631–49) and Osman Saqizli (r. 1649–72), both also Pasha, who ruled effectively the region.[42] The latter conquered also Cyrenaica.[42] The USS Enterprise of the Mediterranean Squadron capturing a Tripolitan Corsair during the First Barbary War, 1801 Lacking direction from the Ottoman government, Tripoli lapsed into a period of military anarchy during which coup followed coup and few deys survived in office more than a year. One such coup was led by Turkish officer Ahmed Karamanli.[42] The Karamanlis ruled from 1711 until 1835 mainly in Tripolitania, and had influence in Cyrenaica and Fezzan as well by the mid-18th century. Ahmad's successors proved to be less capable than himself, however, the region's delicate balance of power allowed the Karamanli. The 1793–95 Tripolitanian civil war occurred in those years. In 1793, Turkish officer Ali Benghul deposed Hamet Karamanli and briefly restored Tripolitania to Ottoman rule. Hamet's brother Yusuf (r. 1795–1832) re-established Tripolitania's independence. In the early 19th century war broke out between the United States and Tripolitania, and a series of battles ensued in what came to be known as the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War. By 1819, the various treaties of the Napoleonic Wars had forced the Barbary states to give up piracy almost entirely, and Tripolitania's economy began to crumble. As Yusuf weakened, factions sprung up around his three sons. Civil war soon resulted.[43] Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II sent in troops ostensibly to restore order, marking the end of both the Karamanli dynasty and an independent Tripolitania.[43] Order was not recovered easily, and the revolt of the Libyan under Abd-El-Gelil and Gûma ben Khalifa lasted until the death of the latter in 1858.[43] The second period of direct Ottoman rule saw administrative changes, and greater order in the governance of the three provinces of Libya. Ottoman rule finally reasserted to Fezzan between 1850 and 1875 for earning income from Saharan commerce. Italian Libya (1911–1943) Main article: Italian Libya Omar Mukhtar was the leader of Libyan resistance in Cyrenaica against the Italian colonization Australian defenders of Tobruk during World War II. Beginning on 10 April 1941, the Siege of Tobruk lasted for 240 days After the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912), Italy simultaneously turned the three regions into colonies.[44] From 1912 to 1927, the territory of Libya was known as Italian North Africa. From 1927 to 1934, the territory was split into two colonies, Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, run by Italian governors. Some 150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting roughly 20% of the total population.[45] In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Ancient Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony (made up of the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan). Omar Mukhtar was the resistance leader against the Italian colonization and became a national hero despite his capture and execution on 16 September 1931. His face is currently printed on the Libyan ten dinar note in memory and recognition of his patriotism. Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (later King Idris I), Emir of Cyrenaica, led the Libyan resistance to Italian occupation between the two world wars. Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)."[46] Italian historian Emilio Gentile estimates 50,000 deaths resulting from the suppression of resistance.[47] In June 1940, Italy entered World War II. Libya became the setting for the hard-fought North African Campaign that ultimately ended in defeat for Italy and its German ally in 1943. From 1943 to 1951, Libya was under Allied occupation. The British military administered the two former Italian Libyan provinces of Tripolitana and Cyrenaïca, while the French administered the province of Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal of some aspects of foreign control in 1947. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.[48] Independence, Kingdom of Libya and Libya under Gaddafi (1951–2011) Main articles: Kingdom of Libya and History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi King Idris I led the country into independence in 1951 and became its first head of state On 24 December 1951, Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy under King Idris, Libya's only monarch. The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled one of the world's poorest nations to establish an extremely wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan government's finances, resentment among some factions began to build over the increased concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of King Idris.[citation needed] Gaddafi (left) with Egyptian President Nasser in 1969[49] On 1 September 1969, a small group of military officers led by Muammar Gaddafi staged a coup d'état against King Idris, launching the Al Fateh Revolution.[50] Gaddafi was referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official Libyan press.[51] On 2 March 1977, Libya officially became the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". Gaddafi officially passed power to the General People's Committees and henceforth claimed to be no more than a symbolic figurehead.[52] Dissidence against the new system was not tolerated. At around the same time the Jamahiriya was established, Gaddafi authorized the execution of twenty-two officers who had participated in a 1975 attempted military coup, in addition to the execution of several civilians.[53] The new "jamahiriya" governance structure he established was officially referred to as "direct democracy",[54] though the government refused to publish election results.[55] Libya's system of governance during the Jamahiriya era was based on Gaddafi's theories outlined in his The Green Book, published in 1975. Under the Jamahiriya system, political issues for debate were raised at local level around the country, convened by any one of about 2,000 local "people's committees". The committees would then pass their votes to a central general committee formed by elected members, where votes at the local congresses would finally influence the outcomes of national decisions.[56] In February 1977, Libya started delivering military supplies to Goukouni Oueddei and the People's Armed Forces in Chad. The Chadian–Libyan conflict began in earnest when Libya's support of rebel forces in northern Chad escalated into an invasion. Later that same year, Libya and Egypt fought a four-day border war that came to be known as the Libyan-Egyptian War, both nations agreed to a ceasefire under the mediation of the Algerian president Houari Boumediène.[57] Hundreds of Libyans lost their lives in the war against Tanzania, when Gaddafi tried to save his friend Idi Amin. Gaddafi financed various other groups from anti-nuclear movements to Australian trade unions.[58] From 1977 onward, per capita income in the country rose to more than US $11,000, the fifth-highest in Africa,[59] while the Human Development Index became the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia.[60] This was achieved without borrowing any foreign loans, keeping Libya debt-free.[61] The Great Manmade River was also built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country.[60] In addition, financial support was provided for university scholarships and employment programs.[62] Much of Libya's income from oil, which soared in the 1970s, was spent on arms purchases and on sponsoring dozens of paramilitaries and terrorist groups around the world.[63][64][65] An American airstrike failed to kill Gaddafi in 1986. Libya was finally put under United Nations sanctions after the bombing of a commercial flight killed hundreds of travellers.[66] Muammar Gaddafi gained power in a 1969 coup and was "leader of the revolution" until his overthrow in 2011 A gathering of more than 200 African kings and traditional rulers, meeting on 27 August 2008 in the Libyan town of Benghazi, conferred on Colonel Gaddafi the title "King of Kings of Africa". Sheikh Abdilmajid of Tanzania said traditional rulers were more influential in Africa than their respective governments.[67] 2011 Civil War Ambox current red.svg This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2016) Ambox current red.svg Parts of this article (those related to The first civil war against Gaddafi and the second Libyan Civil war 2014 – Present which needs to be added ) need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2016) Main article: Libyan Civil War (2011) Demonstrations in Bayda on 22 July 2011 After the Arab Spring movements overturned the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, Libya experienced a full-scale revolt beginning on 17 February 2011.[68] Libya's authoritarian regime led by Muammar Gaddafi put up much more of a resistance compared to the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia. While overthrowing the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia was a relatively quick process, Gaddafi's campaign posed significant stalls on the uprisings in Libya.[69] The first announcement of a competing political authority appeared online and declared the Interim Transitional National Council as an alternative government. One of Gaddafi's senior advisors responded by posting a tweet, wherein he resigned, defected, and advised Gaddafi to flee.[70] By 20 February, the unrest had spread to Tripoli. On 27 February 2011, the National Transitional Council was established to administer the areas of Libya under rebel control. On 10 March 2011, France became the first state to officially recognise the council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.[71][72] Pro-Gaddaffi forces were able to respond militarily to rebel pushes in Western Libya and launched a counterattack along the coast toward Benghazi, the de facto centre of the uprising.[73] The town of Zawiya, 48 kilometres (30 mi) from Tripoli, was bombarded by air force planes and army tanks and seized by Jamahiriya troops, "exercising a level of brutality not yet seen in the conflict."[74] Organizations of the United Nations, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon[75] and the United Nations Human Rights Council, condemned the crackdown as violating international law, with the latter body expelling Libya outright in an unprecedented action urged by Libya's own delegation to the UN.[76][77] On 17 March 2011 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973,[78] with a 10–0 vote and five abstentions including Russia, China, India, Brazil and Germany. The resolution sanctioned the establishment of a no-fly zone and the use of "all means necessary" to protect civilians within Libya.[79] On 19 March, the first act of NATO allies to secure the no-fly zone by destroying Libyan air defences began when French military jets entered Libyan airspace on a reconnaissance mission heralding attacks on enemy targets.[80] In the weeks that followed, American forces were in the forefront of NATO operations against Libya. More than 8,000 American personnel in warships and aircraft were deployed in the area. At least 3,000 targets were struck in 14,202 strike sorties, 716 of them in Tripoli and 492 in Brega.[81] The American air offensive included flights of B-2 Stealth bombers, each bomber armed with sixteen 2000-pound bombs, flying out of and returning to their base in Missouri on the continental United States.[82] The support provided by the NATO airforces was pivotal in the ultimate success of the revolution.[83] By 22 August 2011, rebel fighters had entered Tripoli and occupied Green Square,[84] which they renamed Martyrs' Square in honour of those killed since 17 February 2011. On 20 October 2011 the last heavy fighting of the uprising came to an end in the city of Sirte, where Gaddafi was captured and killed. The defeat of loyalist forces was celebrated on 23 October 2011, three days after the fall of Sirte. At least 30,000 Libyans died in the civil war.[85] Post-Gaddafi era Main articles: Aftermath of the 2011 Libyan Civil War and Libyan Civil War (2014–present) Areas of control in the Civil War, updated 10 December 2016: Location dot red.svg Tobruk-led Government Location dot lime.svg Government of National Accord Location dot blue.svg Petroleum Facilities Guard Location dot yellow.svg Tuareg tribes Location dot orange.svg Local forces Since the defeat of loyalist forces, Libya has been torn among numerous rival, armed militias affiliated with distinct regions, cities and tribes, while the central government has been weak and unable effectively to exert its authority over the country. Competing militias have pitted themselves against each other in a political struggle between Islamist politicians and their opponents.[86] On 7 July 2012, Libyans held their first parliamentary elections since the end of the former regime. On 8 August 2012, the National Transitional Council officially handed power over to the wholly elected General National Congress, which was then tasked with the formation of an interim government and the drafting of a new Libyan Constitution to be approved in a general referendum.[87] On 25 August 2012, in what Reuters reported as "the most blatant sectarian attack" since the end of the civil war, unnamed organized assailants bulldozed a Sufi mosque with graves, in broad daylight in the center of the Libyan capital Tripoli. It was the second such razing of a Sufi site in two days.[88] Numerous acts of vandalism and destruction of heritage were carried out by suspected Islamist militias, most notably with the removal of the Nude Gazelle Statue and the destruction and desecration of World War II-era British grave sites near Benghazi.[89][84] Many other cases of Heritage vandalism were carried out and were reported to be carried out by Islamist related radical militias and mobs that either destroyed, robbed, or looted a number of Historic sites which remain in danger at present. On 11 September 2012, Islamist militants mounted a surprise attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three others. The incident generated outrage in the United States and Libya.[90][91][92] On 7 October 2012, Libya's Prime Minister-elect Mustafa A.G. Abushagur was ousted[93] after failing a second time to win parliamentary approval for a new cabinet.[94][95] On 14 October 2012, the General National Congress elected former GNC member and human rights lawyer Ali Zeidan as prime minister-designate.[96] Zeidan was sworn in after his cabinet was approved by the GNC.[97][98] On 11 March 2014, after having been ousted by the GNC for his inability to halt a rogue oil shipment,[99] Prime Minister Zeiden stepped down, and was replaced by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani.[100] On 25 March 2014, in the face of mounting instability, al-Thani's government briefly explored the possibility of the restoration of the Libyan monarchy.[101] In June 2014, elections were held to the Council of Deputies, a new legislative body intended to take over from the General National Congress. The elections were marred by violence and low turnout, with voting stations closed in some areas.[102] Secularists and liberals did well in the elections, to the consternation of Islamist lawmakers in the GNC, who reconvened and declared a continuing mandate for the GNC, refusing to recognise the new Council of Deputies.[103] Armed supporters of the General National Congress occupied Tripoli, forcing the newly elected parliament to flee to Tobruk.[104][105] Libya has been riven by conflict between the rival parliaments since mid-2014. Tribal militias and jihadist groups have taken advantage of the power vacuum. Most notably, radical Islamist fighters seized Derna in 2014 and Sirte in 2015 in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In early 2015, neighbouring Egypt launched airstrikes against ISIL in support of the Tobruk government.[106][107][108] In January 2015, meetings were held with the aim to find a peaceful agreement between the rival parties in Libya. The so-called Geneva-Ghadames talks were supposed to bring the GNC and the Tobruk government together at one table to find a solution of the internal conflict. However, the GNC actually never participated, a sign that internal division not only affected the "Tobruk Camp", but also the "Tripoli Camp". Meanwhile, terrorism within Libya has steadily increased, affecting also neighbouring countries. The terrorist attack against the Bardo Museum on 18 March 2015, was reportedly carried on by two Libyan-trained militants.[109] During 2015 an extended series of diplomatic meetings and peace negotiations were supported by the United Nations, as conducted by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Spanish diplomat Bernardino Leon.[110][111][112] UN support for the SRSG-led process of dialogue carried on in addition to the usual work of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).[113] In July 2015 SRSG Leon reported to the UN Security Council on the progress of the negotiations, which at that point had just achieved a political agreement on 11 July setting out "a comprehensive framework…includ[ing] guiding principles…institutions and decision-making mechanisms to guide the transition until the adoption of a permanent constitution." The stated purpose of that process was "…intended to culminate in the creation of a modern, democratic state based on the principle of inclusion, the rule of law, separation of powers and respect for human rights." The SRSG praised the participants for achieving agreement, stating that "The Libyan people have unequivocally expressed themselves in favour of peace." The SRSG then informed the Security Council that "Libya is at a critical stage" and urging "all parties in Libya to continue to engage constructively in the dialogue process", stating that "only through dialogue and political compromise, can a peaceful resolution of the conflict be achieved. A peaceful transition will only succeed in Libya through a significant and coordinated effort in supporting a future Government of National Accord…". Talks, negotiations and dialogue continued on during mid-2015 at various international locations, culminating at Skhirat in Morocco in early September.[114][115] Also in 2015, as part of the ongoing support from the international community, the UN Human Rights Council requested a report about the Libyan situation[116][117] and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, established an investigative body (OIOL) to report on human rights and rebuilding the Libyan justice system.[118] Geography Main article: Geography of Libya A map of Libya Libya map of Köppen climate classification Libya extends over 1,759,540 square kilometres (679,362 sq mi), making it the 17th largest nation in the world by size. Libya is bound to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, the west by Tunisia and Algeria, the southwest by Niger, the south by Chad, Sudan on the southeast, and to the east by Egypt. Libya lies between latitudes 19° and 34°N, and longitudes 9° and 26°E. At 1,770 kilometres (1,100 mi), Libya's coastline is the longest of any African country bordering the Mediterranean.[119][120] The portion of the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya is often called the Libyan Sea. The climate is mostly extremely dry and desertlike in nature. However, the northern regions enjoy a milder Mediterranean climate.[121] Natural hazards come in the form of hot, dry, dust-laden sirocco (known in Libya as the gibli). This is a southern wind blowing from one to four days in spring and autumn. There are also dust storms and sandstorms. Oases can also be found scattered throughout Libya, the most important of which are Ghadames and Kufra.[122] Libya is one of the sunniest and driest countries in the world due to prevailing presence of desert environment. Libyan Desert Libya is a predominantly desert country. Up to 90% of the land area is covered in desert. The Libyan Desert, which covers much of Libya, is one of the most arid and sun-baked places on earth.[50] In places, decades may pass without seeing any rainfall at all, and even in the highlands rainfall seldom happens, once every 5–10 years. At Uweinat, as of 2006 the last recorded rainfall was in September 1998.[123] Likewise, the temperature in the Libyan Desert can be extreme; on 13 September 1922 the town of 'Aziziya, which is located southwest of Tripoli, recorded an air temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F), considered to be a world record.[124][125][126] In September 2012, however, the world record figure of 58 °C was overturned by the World Meteorological Organization.[125][126][127] There are a few scattered uninhabited small oases, usually linked to the major depressions, where water can be found by digging to a few feet in depth. In the west there is a widely dispersed group of oases in unconnected shallow depressions, the Kufra group, consisting of Tazerbo, Rebianae and Kufra.[123] Aside from the scarps, the general flatness is only interrupted by a series of plateaus and massifs near the centre of the Libyan Desert, around the convergence of the Egyptian-Sudanese-Libyan borders. Slightly further to the south are the massifs of Arkenu, Uweinat and Kissu. These granite mountains are ancient, having formed long before the sandstones surrounding them. Arkenu and Western Uweinat are ring complexes very similar to those in the Aïr Mountains. Eastern Uweinat (the highest point in the Libyan Desert) is a raised sandstone plateau adjacent to the granite part further west.[123] The plain to the north of Uweinat is dotted with eroded volcanic features. With the discovery of oil in the 1950s also came the discovery of a massive aquifer underneath much of Libya. The water in this aquifer pre-dates the last ice ages and the Sahara Desert itself.[128] This area also contains the Arkenu structures, which were once thought to be two impact craters.[129] Government and politics [icon] This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (February 2013) Main article: Politics of Libya The legislature of Libya is the unicameral Council of Deputies which meets in Tobruk. The former legislature was the General National Congress, which had 200 seats.[130] The General National Congress (2014), a largely unrecognised rival parliament based in the de jure capital of Tripoli, claims to be a legal continuation of the GNC.[131][132] On 7 July 2012, Libyans voted in parliamentary elections, the first free elections in almost 40 years.[133] Around thirty women were elected to become members of parliament.[133] Early results of the vote showed the National Forces Alliance, led by former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, as front runner.[134] The Justice and Construction Party, affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, has done less well than similar parties in Egypt and Tunisia.[135] It won 17 out of 80 seats that were contested by parties, but about 60 independents have since joined its caucus.[135] As of January 2013, there was mounting public pressure on the National Congress to set up a drafting body to create a new constitution. Congress had not yet decided whether the members of the body would be elected or appointed.[136] On 30 March 2014 General National Congress voted to replace itself with new Council of Deputies. The new legislature allocates 30 seats for women, will have 200 seats overall (with individuals able to run as members of political parties) and allows Libyans of foreign nationalities to run for office.[137] Following the 2012 elections, Freedom House improved Libya's rating from Not Free to Partly Free, and now considers the country to be an electoral democracy.[138] Gaddafi merged civil and sharia courts in 1973. Civil courts now employ sharia judges who sit in regular courts of appeal and specialise in sharia appellate cases.[139] Laws regarding personal status are derived from Islamic law.[140] At a meeting of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs on 2 December 2014, UN Special Representative Bernardino León described Libya as a non-state.[141] An agreement to form a unified interim government was signed on 17 December 2015.[20] Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council and a seventeen-member interim Government of National Accord would be formed, with a view to holding new elections within two years.[20] The House of Representatives would continue to exist as a legislature and an advisory body, to be known as the State Council, will be formed with members nominated by the General National Congress (2014).[142] Foreign relations Main article: Foreign relations of Libya UK Foreign Secretary William Hague with Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, November 2013 Libya's foreign policies have fluctuated since 1951. As a Kingdom, Libya maintained a definitively pro-Western stance, and was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist bloc in the League of Arab States (the present-day Arab League), of which it became a member in 1953.[143] The government was also friendly towards Western countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Greece, and established full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955.[144] Although the government supported Arab causes, including the Moroccan and Algerian independence movements, it took little active part in the Arab-Israeli dispute or the tumultuous inter-Arab politics of the 1950s and early 1960s. The Kingdom was noted for its close association with the West, while it steered a conservative course at home.[145] Libyan National Security Adviser Mutassim Gaddafi with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 After the 1969 coup, Muammar Gaddafi closed American and British bases and partly nationalized foreign oil and commercial interests in Libya. Gaddafi was known for backing a number of leaders viewed as anathema to Westernization and political liberalism, including Ugandan President Idi Amin,[146] Central African Emperor Jean-Bédel Bokassa,[147][148] Ethiopian strongman Haile Mariam Mengistu,[148] Liberian President Charles Taylor,[149] and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.[150] Relations with the West were strained by a series of incidents for most of Gaddafi's rule,[151][152][153] including the killing of London policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub frequented by U.S. servicemen, and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which led to UN sanctions in the 1990s, though by the late 2000s, the United States and other Western powers had normalised relations with Libya.[50] Gaddafi's decision to abandon the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction after the Iraq War saw Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein overthrown and put on trial led to Libya being hailed as a success for Western soft power initiatives in the War on Terror.[154][155][156] In October 2010, Gaddafi apologized to African leaders on behalf of Arab nations for their involvement in the African slave trade.[157] Libya is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer. Military Main article: Libyan National Army Ambox current red.svg This article needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2016) The Libyan National Army comprises a ground army, an air force and a navy. It is currently being re-established by the Libyan government[citation needed], as Libya's previous national army was defeated in the Libyan Civil War and disbanded. As of May 2012, an estimated 35,000 personnel have joined its ranks.[158] As of November 2012, it was deemed to be still in the embryonic stage of development.[159] President Mohammed el-Megarif promised that empowering the army and police force is the government's biggest priority.[160] President el-Megarif also ordered that all of the country's militias must come under government authority or disband.[161] Militias have so far refused to be integrated into a central security force.[162] Many of these militias are disciplined, but the most powerful of them answer only to the executive councils of various Libyan cities.[162] These militias make up the so-called Libyan Shield, a parallel national force, which operates at the request, rather than at the order, of the defence ministry.