Libya

Libya is a big country in North Africa.

The Mediterranean Sea is on its north side. Most of Libya is desert. Most people live near the sea. The biggest city is Tripoli.

Libya is a large country in North Africa. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Niger and Chad to the south, and Tunisia and Algeria to the west.

Most of Libya is part of the Sahara, the great desert of North Africa, and most people live along the coast, in cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi. About 7.5 million people lived in Libya in 2025, and almost all of them speak Arabic.

Libya covers about 1.76 million square kilometers of North Africa. Britannica describes three historical regions: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east and Fezzan in the southwest. The Ottoman authorities treated them as separate provinces, and Italian rule joined them into a single colony, which gave way to independent Libya. For much of their early history, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were more closely linked with their neighbors than with each other.

Much of the population is concentrated along the coast and just inland of it; the World Bank estimated 7,458,555 people in 2025. Before oil was discovered in the late 1950s, Libya was considered poor in natural resources. At the beginning of the 21st century, oil and natural gas provided almost three-fourths of national income and nearly all export earnings.

Tripoli is the biggest city in Libya. It is by the sea.

Long ago, people built big stone cities on the coast. You can still see their tall columns. In the desert, the old town of Ghadames has mud-brick houses close together.

Tripoli, in the northwest, is Libya's largest city and capital, with more than two million people in its metropolitan area. Benghazi, the main city of the east, has more than a million.

Along the coast stand the ruins of ancient cities. Leptis Magna began as a Phoenician trading port in the 600s BCE and grew into one of the grandest cities of Roman North Africa. Cyrene, in the east, was founded by Greeks. Far inland, Ghadames, called the Pearl of the Desert, is an old town of mud-brick houses built around a spring, surrounded by palm groves.

Tripoli, the de facto political capital and the most important economic center, has a metropolitan population of more than two million; Benghazi, the primary city of Cyrenaica, has more than one million (Britannica). Together the two cities hold about a quarter of Libya's people.

UNESCO lists five World Heritage Sites in Libya. Leptis Magna, founded by the Phoenicians in the 7th century BCE, was embellished by the Severan emperors in the 3rd century CE; UNESCO counts its port, with an artificial basin and a canal that regulated the Wadi Lebda, among the outstanding works of Roman technology. Sabratha began as a Phoenician trading post at the end of the 5th century BCE. Cyrene, a colony of Greeks from Thera, remained a great capital until the earthquake of 365. Inland are the Old Town of Ghadamès, a hub of trans-Saharan trade for at least 2,000 years, and the rock paintings of Tadrart Acacus. UNESCO placed all five on its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2016; Ghadamès came off that list in 2025.

Most of Libya is desert.

There is lots of sand and rock. Some sand hills are very tall. Libya has no rivers that flow all year. Deep under the sand, there is very old water.

About nine-tenths of Libya is the Saharan plateau, and about half of that is sand desert, a real sea of sand. In the southwest, moving dunes can reach 90 meters high. The highest point, Bikku Bitti, rises to 2,267 meters on the border with Chad.

Libya has no permanent rivers. Dry riverbeds called wadis fill with water after heavy rain, then quickly dry up again. Along the coast, winters are cool and rainy and summers are hot and dry. Sometimes a hot, dusty wind called the ghibli blows from the south and turns the sky red.

Libya rests on Precambrian basement rocks covered by marine and wind-blown deposits. In the northwest the Al-Jifārah Plain, about 26,000 km², rises to about 300 m at the foot of the limestone Nafūsah Plateau; in the northeast the Akhḍar (Green) Mountains reach nearly 900 m. The Saharan plateau makes up about nine-tenths of the country: half of it is sand desert, with uplands such as Al-Harūj al-Aswad, a basaltic plateau crowned by volcanic peaks, and mobile dunes up to 90 m high in the Marzūq desert. The highest point is Bīkkū Bīttī, 2,267 m, on the Chad border.

There are no permanent rivers; wadis fill with flash floods and quickly dry. Westerly winds bring storms and rain from October to March. Tripoli averages about 380 mm a year and Benghazi about 250 mm, while Saharan zones get less than 25 mm and Sabhā only about 10 mm. Beneath the desert lie deep fossil aquifers, tapped by wells, springs and the Great Man-Made River.

About 7 and a half million people lived in Libya in 2025.

Most people speak Arabic. Some people also speak an Amazigh language. Farmers grow dates, olives and grains.

Most of Libya's people live in the northwest, in Tripoli and the other cities along the coast and on the Nafusah Plateau. Arabic is the official language, and almost everyone speaks it. The Imazighen, also called Berbers, are thought to be Libya's earliest inhabitants; on the Nafusah Plateau many speak both Nafusi, an Amazigh language, and Arabic. Small groups of Tuareg live in the southwest, around the oases of Ghadames and Ghat.

Most Libyans are Muslim. On farms, wheat is the biggest grain crop and barley is an everyday food. Olives, almonds, figs and citrus fruits grow in orchards, and dates are the main crop of the southern oases.

Almost all of Libya's people speak Arabic, the official language, and most are Sunni Muslims, with very small Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian minorities. The Imazighen are believed to be the earliest inhabitants; most have been assimilated into Arab society, except in areas such as the Nafūsah Plateau, Awjilah and Zuwarah, and many there are bilingual in Nafusi and Arabic. Tuareg live around Ghadames and Ghāt, and Teda (Tubu) communities in the southeast. Britannica also notes a Dom community of some 30,000 people who speak Domari.

The majority lives in Tripolitania, a smaller share in Cyrenaica and the rest in the oasis towns of the Fezzan. Most rural families farm small irrigated plots in coastal oases, while Bedouin herders in Cyrenaica keep sheep, goats and camels and move south when pasture sprouts in the fall. Wheat is the largest cereal crop and barley remains a dietary staple; dates are the principal crop of the southern oases. Britannica describes the population as young: more than half are under 30.