Libya ( ', Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ "Libya"), officially the State of Libya, is a country in North Africa. It is 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. It covers an area of almost . It is the 17th largest country in the world.
Libya's borders touch the countries of Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Niger, and Tunisia. To its north is the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of Libya is Tripoli, which is a port on the sea. Tripoli has about one million people. Libya covers an area of about .
The highest point in Libya is Bikku Bitti 2,267 m above sea level and the lowest point is Sabkhat Ghuzayyil -47 m at below sea level. Most of the country is flat, with large plains. Because it is so dry, only 1.03% of the land is suitable for farming.
The area around Tripoli is called "Tripolitania", and it was the most developed during the Ottoman occupation.
Cyrenaica is an area of the north east coast. It is divided from Tripolitania by the Gulf of Sirte. It was named by the Greeks who built the city of Cirene in 630 BC. It includes the cities of Tobruk and Benghazi.
The Fezzan is an area of desert in south west Libya which the Italians made a part of Tripoli in 1912. After the war this area was governed by France, who wanted to annex to their Empire.
The population of Libya in 2011 was said to be about 6,597,960. This is not a large number for a country that has such a large area, so the population density of Libya is low. This is because much of Libya is in the Sahara Desert. Most people in Libya live in cities on the coast. People from Libya are called Libyans.
Libyans are mostly Arabs, though many are Berbers, a group which includes the nomadic Tuareg of North Africa. About 95% of Libyans are of Arab-Berber origin. Nearly all Libyans are Sunni Muslims.
Since 2007 Libya has been divided into 22 districts.
Oil was discovered in Libya in 1958 and is about 95% of the country's export income. Oil is about 25% of Libya's GDP. Other exports include natural gas, salt, limestone and gypsum. Because so much of the country is desert, Libya has to import about 75% of its food. It does grow wheat, barley, olives, dates, citrus, peanuts, soybeans and many vegetables. In 1984, a pipeline was started to bring underground water from the Sahara to coastal areas for irrigation. The pipeline which will take 25 years to complete has been estimated to cost about $25 billion. It is called the Great Man-made River, and is the largest water development scheme in the world.
The money of Libya is called the Libyan dinar. It was made to take the place of the old money, the Libyan pound, in 1971. There are 1000 dirhams in a dinar. Dinar is the name of the money in many Islamic countries. The name comes from an old Roman coin, the denarius.
Libya is made up of three regions, Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and the Fezzan. Tripolitania is the area on the north west coast, once called the Kingdom of Tripoli. It was ruled by Turks from the Ottoman Empire. The USA went to war with the Kingdom of Tripoli in 1805 over the problems of piracy in the Mediterranean. The USA had refused to pay increased "protection" money to the Turkish rulers.
Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were captured by the Italians during the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912. The reason for the war was to set up a colony for Italy. They said that this area was once part of the Roman Empire and belonged to Italy. The Italians were the first country to use aeroplanes to drop bombs when they attacked Tripoli in 1911.
Many thousands of Italian settlers moved to Libya to set up businesses and farms, which were going to supply food and produce for Italy and its Empire Libyans had some of their land in Cyrenaica taken from them by force and about 70,000 people died during the battles, starved, or were decimated by the terrible epidemic (called "Spanish flu") of 1918. Many thousands escaped to Egypt, but soon moved back when the new Italian governor Italo Balbo started a friendly attitude toward Arabs.
Italian Libya enjoyed in the late 1930s a huge development, with the creation of new railways, ports, hospitals, airports, roads. In those years the agricultural economy boomed, thanks to the creation of many dozens of new villages for Italian & Arab farmers. There was even an international race-car competition outside Tripoli ("Grand Prix of Tripoli" ).
Much of the North African Campaign of World War II was fought in Libya, including the Battle of Tobruk. The British captured Tripolitania in 1942 and ruled it until 1951.
After World War II, the regions of Libya were ruled by military governors from both Britain and France. The United Nations made Libya an independent country, the United Kingdom of Libya, in 1951. This was to be a constitutional monarchy, ruled by King Idris I and his successors. Idris (Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi) (13 March 1890—25 May 1983) had been the Emir of Cyrenaica, but went into exile in Egypt in 1922. At the end of the war, he returned as emir, with support of Britain. He was also asked to be Emir of Tripolitania. He was able to unite the three regions and became the king of the United Kingdom of Libya on 24 December 1951.
The problems facing Libya were huge. The country was poor, with little in the way of goods to export. Only 250,000 people could read. There were only 16 Libyan college graduates, no Libyan doctors, engineers, pharmacists, or surveyors. The United Nations estimated that 10% of the people were blind from eye diseases, especially trachoma. Idris was a religious leader did not take much interest in the affairs of government. His government was seen to be corrupt, and did nothing about an increasing rise in Arab nationalism which had brought Nasser to power in Egypt in 1952. Once oil was discovered, Libya became one of the largest oil producing countries in the world. Many Libyans felt that Cyrenaica was getting more of the oil money than the rest of the country. A lot of the money from oil was also going to overseas companies.
In the early morning of 1 September 1969, a group of military officers took over the government in a coup d'état. Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi was named as chief of staff of the military. From 1970-1972 he served as Prime Minister. He began a political system named "The Third Universal Theory". This is a mix of socialism and Islam, based on tribal government. It was to be put in place by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy." Al-Gaddafi called this "jamahiriya".
Some of his first actions were to take back control of the oil and send the remaining Italian settlers back to Italy. He also closed down the American USAF base.
In 1977 Libya became "Al-Jamahiriya al-`Arabiyah al-Libiyah ash-Sha`biyah al-Ishtirakiyah al-Uzma" . In English, the name means the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya".
Libya was alleged to have sponsored anti-western groups. Gaddafi openly supported independence movements like Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Irish Republican Army, the Polisario Front (Western Sahara) and more. Because of this Libya's foreign relations with several western nation were negatively effected, and it would become a reason for US to bomb Libya in 1986. Gaddafi survived the bombing, the action of US was condemned by many countries and UN general assembly.