Libya

I

Introduction

Libya, country in northern Africa that borders the Mediterranean Sea. Libya is one of the largest countries in Africa. Despite its size Libya is thinly settled. The Sahara, the vast desert of northern Africa, covers much of the country. Nearly all of Libya’s inhabitants live near the coast. Tripoli, located on the Mediterranean coast, is the capital and largest city.

Most of Libya’s people are descended from a mixture of Berbers, the country’s original inhabitants, and Arabs, who arrived in the 7th century ad. Small numbers of Berbers still live in the extreme south of the country. The great majority of the people are Muslims, and Islam is the official state religion. Arabic is the official language.

Libya was a poor country until the discovery of oil in the 1950s. Since then its large reserves of petroleum have made Libya one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. Many of its people, however, still live by farming and grazing livestock, despite the extremely limited amount of good farmland.

The site of ancient Phoenician, Roman, and Arab settlements, Libya was colonized by Italy in the early 20th century. The country became an independent monarchy in 1951, and in 1969 young army officer Muammar al-Qaddafi seized power. Qaddafi proceeded to create a new Libya based on his theories of socialism and Arab nationalism. He renamed the country the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The word Jamahiriya was coined by Qaddafi, who defines it as a state run by all its people. Most outsiders viewed Libya as a military dictatorship, however.

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II

Land and Resources

The Sahara, a vast North African desert, covers most of Libya. Much of the country’s land consists of barren, rock-strewn plains and sand sea. Two small areas of hills rise in the northwest and northeast, and the Tibesti massif rises near the southern border. There are no permanent rivers or streams in Libya. The coastline is indented near the center by the Gulf of Sidra, where barren desert reaches the Mediterranean Sea.

Libya is bounded on the east by Egypt, on the southeast by Sudan, on the south by Chad and Niger, on the west by Algeria, and on the northwest by Tunisia.

A

Natural Regions

Libya is divided into three natural regions. The largest, to the east of the Gulf of Sidra, is Cyrenaica, occupying the plateau of Jabal al Akhḑar. To the west of the Gulf of Sidra lies the agricultural region of Tripolitania. Hundreds of miles to the south, in southwestern Libya, is the basin of Fezzan.

A

1

Cyrenaica

In Cyrenaica the limestone Jabal al Akhḑar (Green Mountains) near the Mediterranean coast reach as high as 900 m (3,000 ft). The higher parts are covered with dense scrub and some pines and juniper. Rainfall is sufficient for some agriculture.

South of the Jabal al Akhḑar lies an immense, but lower, sandstone plateau. This plateau makes up the western extent of the Libyan Desert, which is part of the Sahara. Much of this area is covered with sand dunes, especially along the border with Egypt. Several oases are located along the western edge of the Libyan Desert. The most important and most southerly of these is Al Kufrah, situated more than 800 km (500 mi) south of the Jabal al Akhḑar. Another 500 km (300 mi) of sparsely inhabited desert stretches between Al Kufrah and the southern border of Libya.