Mediaboss Marketing

Not to be confused with crab genus Lybia. State of Libya (Arabic) Dawlat Libya (Berber) Tamurt n Libya Anthem: Location of Libya(dark blue)

in Africa(light blue &dark grey) in the African Union(light blue)

Libya (Arabic: Lby, Amazigh language: Libya), officially the State of Libya,[5][6] is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa 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. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8million square kilometres (700,000sqmi), Libya is the 17th largest country in the world.[7]

The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fifth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, Gabon, and Botswana. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.[8]

A civil war and NATO-led military intervention in 2011 resulted in the ousting and death of the country's former leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the collapse of his 42-year "First of September 'Al Fateh' Revolution" and 34-year-old Jamahiriya state. As a result, Libya is currently undergoing political reconstruction, and is governed under an interim constitution drawn up by the National Transitional Council (NTC).[9][10]Elections to a General National Congress were held on 7 July 2012, and the NTC handed power to the newly elected assembly on 8 August.[11] The assembly has the responsibility of forming a constituent assembly to draft a permanent constitution for Libya, which will then be put to a referendum.[12]

The name Libya (i// or //; Arabic: Lb(i)y [lib(i)j]( listen); Libyan Arabic: [libj]) was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, after the historical name for Northwest Africa, from the ancient Greek (Lib).[13] The name was based on earlier use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli.[14]

Libya gained independence in 1951 as the United Libyan Kingdom (Arabic: al-Mamlakah al-Lbiyyah al-Muttaidah), changing its name to the Kingdom of Libya (Arabic: al-Mamlakah al-Lbiyyah) in 1963.[15] Following a coup d'tat led by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969, the name of the state was changed to the Libyan Arab Republic (Arabic: al-Jumhriyyah al-Arabiyyah al-Lbiyyah). The official name was "Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya" from 1977 to 1986, and "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"[16] (Arabic: [17] al-Jamhriyyah al-Arabiyyah al-Lbiyyah ash-Shabiyyah al-Ishtirkiyyah al-Um listen(helpinfo)) from 1986 to 2011.

The National Transitional Council, established in 2011, referred to the state as simply "Libya". The UN formally recognized the country as "Libya" in September 2011,[18] based on a request from the Permanent Mission of Libya citing the Libyan interim Constitutional Declaration of 3 August 2011. In November 2011, the ISO 3166-1 was altered to reflect the new country name "Libya" in English, "Libye (la)" in French.[19]

The current name, "State of Libya" (Arabic: Dawlat Libya), was adopted unanimously by the General National Congress in January 2013.[5]

The coastal plain of Libya was inhabited by Neolithic peoples from as early as 8000 BC. The Afro-Asiatic ancestors of the Berber people are assumed to have spread into the area by the Late Bronze Age. The earliest known name of such a tribe is that of the Garamantes, who were based in Germa. The Phoenicians were the first to establish trading posts in Libya.[20] By the 5th century BC, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, Carthage, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being.

More here:
Libya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia