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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, Libyas very name is a neologism, created by the conquering Italians early in the 20th century. Also like that of Algeria, much of Libyas earlier historynot only in the Islamic period but even beforereveals 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 Banghz 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 Sansiyyah 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 Sansiyyah 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.

The future of Libya gave rise to long discussions after the war. In view of the contribution to the fighting made by a volunteer Sans force, the British foreign minister pledged in 1942 that the Sanss 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 Sansiyyah, Sd Muammad Idrs al-Mahd al-Sans, 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 kings authority was sovereign. Though not themselves Sanss, the Tripolitanians accepted the monarchy largely in order to profit from the British promise that the Sanss 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 Sans zwiyah at Al-Bay. 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.

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 kings 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 monarchys 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.

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. Qaddafis 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 JulyAugust 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 regimes relations with most Arab countries deteriorated. Qaddafi signed a treaty of union with Moroccos King Hassan II in August 1984, but Hassan abrogated the treaty two years later.

The regime, under Qaddafis ideological guidance, continued to introduce innovations. On March 2, 1977, the General Peoples Congress declared that Libya was to be known as the Peoples Socialist Libyan Arab Jamhriyyah (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 Qaddafis efforts to play a strong regional role. Ambitious efforts to radically change Libyas 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.

Libyas relationship with the United States, which had been an important trading partner, deteriorated in the early 1980s as the U.S. government increasingly protested Qaddafis 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 Banghz in 1986, in which Qaddafis 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 the 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 Chads more mobile troops, and diplomatic ties with that country were restored late the following year. Libya denied involvement in Chads December 1990 coup led by Idriss Dby (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 Libyas return to the international community.

In the years that followed the lifting of sanctions, one of Qaddafis 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.

In February 2011, in the midst of a wave of popular demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa, antigovernment rallies were held in Banghz 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.

As protests intensified, with demonstrators taking control of Banghz 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 Qaddafis 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.

The governments 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 Libyas 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 Banghz, 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 familys 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 Banghz in early March. Known as the Transitional National Council (TNC), it declared that its aims would be to act as the rebellions military leadership and as the representative of the Libyan opposition, provide services in rebel-held areas, and guide the countrys transition to democratic government.

In the weeks that followed, the conflict appeared to enter a stalemate and then to tilt in Qaddafis 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.

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 Libyas 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 Ajdbiy, the last large rebel-held city on the route to Banghz. As they advanced on the remaining rebel positions in Banghz and Tobruk in the east and Mirtah 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 Libyas 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 Libyas 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 Mirtah and the contested city of Ajdbiy, 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 Ajdbiy, 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 coalitions 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; Qaddafis 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 Qaddafis compound in Tripoli killed Qaddafis youngest son, Sayf al-Arab, along with three of Qaddafis 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 Libyas 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 Zwiyah, the site of one of Libyas 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 Bb al-Azziyyah compound, Qaddafis headquarters. Rebels raised Libyas 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 Ban Wald 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.)

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 Libyas 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 Banghz, killing four Americans including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

Within the GNC there were disputes over the assemblys functions and mandate, and boycotts threatened its overall viability. The divisions between armed groups continued to deepenwith steadily increasing bloodshedas 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. Jathrans 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 Haftars 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 Haftars 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 House of Representatives, meanwhile, convened in the eastern city of Tobruk under the protection of Haftars troops.

The absence of central authority in Libya created an opening there for the militant extremist group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Fighters from the groups core territories in Iraq and Syria began to arrive in early 2014, and by the summer of 2015 the group had taken control of the central coastal city of Surt. In 2016 a coalition of western militias confronted ISIL with the help of U.S. air support, dislodging them from Surt and the surrounding area. ISIL fighters remained active, though, operating scattered small desert camps and staging occasional attacks.

In December 2015, delegates from Libyas rival factions signed a UN-brokered power-sharing agreement in Skhirat, Morocco, establishing a Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by a prime minister and a nine-member presidency council drawn from constituencies and factions throughout the country. Although the GNA received recognition from the UN Security Council as the legitimate government of Libya, it struggled to consolidate its authority in both the eastern and western halves of the country. In the east the House of Representatives, aligned with the forces of General Haftar, refused to endorse the GNAs proposed ministerial appointments, and in the west the GNA met with resistance from GNC-associated factions.

In September 2017 the UN Support Mission in Libya announced an effort to amend the 2015 agreement, with the goal of creating a workable arrangement for sharing power between the opposing factions. By the end of the year, though, prospects for an agreement looked dim, especially after Haftar gave a speech in December in which he dismissed the legitimacy of the GNA and hinted that he would seek the Libyan presidency for himself.

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