Geography:

Libya is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya faces Egypt to the east, Sudan to the south east, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.

With an area of almost 1,800,000 square kilometers, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The capital, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica.

History of Libya:

The History of Libya includes the history of its rich mix of people added to the indigenous Berber tribes. For most of their history, the people of Libya have been subjected to varying degrees of foreign control. The modern history of independent Libya began in 1951.

The history of Libya comprises five distinct periods: Ancient Libya, the Roman era, the Islamic era, Ottoman rule, Italian rule, and the Modern era.

History of Libya under Muammar al-Gaddafi:

Libya under Muammar al-Gaddafi has spanned a period of over 40 years, has been marked by major international incidents and significant changes for the tribal culture of the Libyan people.

Gaddafi became de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 when he led a group of young Libyan military officers to stage a coup d'état against King Idris I, who would then be exiled to Egypt. The new administration, headed by the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), abolished the monarchy and the constitution, and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic.

Gaddafi resigned from the position of General Secretary of the General People's Congress of Libya in 1979, but remained in power as de-facto dictator throughout the 1980s to 2000s, running the country a single party police state.

Economy

The Libyan economy depends primarily upon revenues from the oil sector, which constitute practically all export earnings and about one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP). The discovery of the oil and natural gas reserves in the country in 1959 led to the transformation of Libya's economy from a poor country to (then) Africa's richest.

The World Bank defines Libya as an 'Upper Middle Income Economy', along with only seven other African countries. In the early 1980s, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in the world; its GDP per capita was higher than that of developed countries such as Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and New Zealand.

Culture

Libya is culturally similar to its neighboring Maghrebian states. Libyans consider themselves very much a part of a wider Arab community. The Libyan state tends to strengthen this feeling by considering Arabic as the only official language, and forbidding the teaching and even the use of the Berber language. Libyan Arabs have a heritage in the traditions of the nomadic Bedouin and associate themselves with a particular Bedouin tribe.

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