Concept

Libya

Overview

Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest. With an area of almost 1.8 million km2 (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth-largest country in Africa and the Arab world, and the 16th-largest in the world. The country claims 32,000 square kilometres of southeastern Algeria, south of the Libyan town of Ghat. The capital and largest city is Tripoli, located in the northwest and containing over a million of Libya's seven million people.

Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age as descendants from Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians established city-states and trading posts in western Libya, while several Greek cities were established in the East. Parts of Libya were variously ruled by Carthaginians, Numidians, Persians, and Greeks before the entire region became a part of the Roman Empire. Libya was an early centre 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 to the region. From then on, centuries of Arab migration to the Maghreb shifted the demographic scope of Libya in favour of Arabs. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights Hospitaller 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 Italo-Turkish War in 1911, which resulted in Italy occupying Libya and establishing two colonies: Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, later unified in the Italian Libya colony from 1934 to 1943.

During World War II, Libya was an area of warfare in the North African Campaign. The Italian population then went into decline and Libya became independent as a kingdom in 1951. A bloodless military coup in 1969, initiated by a coalition led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, overthrew King Idris I and created a republic. Gaddafi was often described by critics as a dictator, and was one of the world's longest serving non-royal leaders. He ruled for 42 years until being overthrown and killed in the 2011 civil war, which was part of the wider Arab Spring, with authority transferred to the National Transitional Council then to the elected General National Congress.

Since 2011, Libya has been involved in a political and humanitarian crisis, and by 2014, two rival authorities claimed to govern Libya, which led to a second civil war, with parts of Libya split between separate governments, based in Tripoli and Tobruk, as well as various tribal and Islamist militias. The two main warring sides signed a permanent ceasefire in 2020, and a unity government took authority to plan for democratic elections, though political rivalries continue to delay this. In March 2022, the House of Representatives ceased recognising the Government of National Unity and proclaimed an alternative government, the Government of National Stability (GNS). Both governments have been functioning simultaneously since then, which has led to dual power in Libya. The international community continues to recognise the unity government as the legitimate government of the country.

Libya is a developing country ranking 115th by HDI, and has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves in the world. Libya has the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per person in Africa, but has made little progress toward developing climate commitments. Libya is a member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and OPEC. The country's official religion is Islam, with 96.6% of the Libyan population being Sunni Muslims. The official language of Libya is Arabic, with vernacular Libyan Arabic being spoken most widely. The majority of Libya's population is Arab.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Libya is discussed.

To the west of the river Triton, Libyans who are husbandmen next adjoin the Auses; they are accustomed to live in houses, and are called Maxyes. They let the hair grow on the right side of the head, and shave the left; and bedaub the body with vermilion: they say that they are descended from men who came from Troy. This region, and all the rest of Libya westward, is much more infested by wild beasts and more thickly…
Herodotus, The Boys' and Girls' Herodotus
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea
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This much however I heard from men of Kyrene, who told me that they had been to the Oracle of Ammon, and had come to speech with Etearchos king of the Ammonians: and it happened that after speaking of other matters they fell to discourse about the Nile and how no one knew the sources of it; and Etearchos said that once there came to him men of the Nasamonians (this is a Libyan race which dwells in the Syrtis, and…
Herodotus, An Account of Egypt
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7. On the whole, the wild animals of Asia are the fiercest, those of Europe the boldest, and those of Libya the most varied in form; and it has passed into a proverb that Libya is always producing something new. For the want of water brings many heterogeneous animals together at the drinking places, where they copulate and produce young, if their periods of gestation happen to be the same, and their size not very…
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
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Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
Plato, Timaeus
names the idea
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He possessed the people with great hopes, and he himself entertained yet greater; and the conquest of Sicily, which was the utmost bound of their ambition, was but the mere outset of his expectation. Nicias endeavored to divert the people from the expedition, by representing to them that the taking of Syracuse would be a work of great difficulty; but Alcibiades dreamed of nothing less than the conquest of Carthage…
Plutarch, The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch
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Philosophers who discussed Libya

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Eastern Bloc

Place in the tradition

Part of Authoritarianism.

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