Libya
From Roach Busters
| جمهورية ليبيا الشعبية Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Ša`biyyah People's Republic of Libya | |
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| Flag | Coat of arms |
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| Motto "al-Watan, at-Thawra, al-Wehda" (Arabic) "Nation, Revolution, Unity" | |
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| Anthem The Internationale | |
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| Capital (and largest city) | Tripoli 32°54′N, 13°11′E |
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| Official languages | Arabic |
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| Demonym | Libyan |
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| Government - General-Secretary - Premier - Politburo President | Socialist state Muammar al-Gaddafi Baghdadi Mahmudi Miftah Muhammed K'eba |
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| Establishment - Relinquished by Italy - Independence - Coup d'état | February 10, 1947 December 24, 1951 September 1, 1969 |
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| Area - Total - Water (%) | 1,759,540 km² 679,359 sq mi negligible |
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| Population - July 2007 estimate - 2006 census - Density | 6,036,914 5,670,688 3.2 /km² 8.4 /sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) - Total - Per capita | 2007 estimate $59.31 billion $9,825 |
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| GDP (nominal) - Total - Per capita | 2007 estimate $55.83 billion $9,248 |
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| Gini (2000) | 25 (low) |
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| HDI (2005) |  0.840 (high)
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| Currency | Dinar (LYD)
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| Time zone - Summer (DST) | EET (UTC +2) not observed (UTC +2) |
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| Internet TLD | .ly |
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| Calling code | +218 |
Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībiyā; Libyan vernacular: Lībya), officially the People's Republic of Libya (Arabic: جمهورية ليبيا الشعبية Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Ša`biyyah), is a country in North Africa. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya lies between Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), 90% of which is desert, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area. The capital, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, the Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
The name "Libya" is a indigenous (i.e. Berber) one, which is attested in ancient Egyptian texts as 
, R'bw (= Libu), which refers to one the tribes of Berber peoples living west of the Nile. In Greek the tribesmen was called Libyes and their country became "Libya", although in ancient Greece the term had a broader meaning, encompassing all of North Africa west of Egypt. Later on, at the time of Ibn Khaldun, the same big tribe was known as Lawata.
Libya's GDP (PPP) is one of the continent's highest; this is largely due to its large petroleum reserves and low population.
Libya has been ruled as a Marxist-Leninist state since 1969, when Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi deposed the pro-Western King Idris I in a bloodless coup. Libya has since become one of the Soviet Union's most consistent and loyal allies, while being viewed by much of the Western world with deep suspicion, due in part to Gaddafi's open support of "national liberation movements" around the world.
History
Archaeological evidence indicates that from as early as the 8th millennium BC, Libya's coastal plain was inhabited by a Neolithic people who were skilled in the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of crops. The area known in modern times as Libya was later occupied by a series of peoples, with the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Vandals and Byzantines ruling all or part of the area. Although the Greeks and Romans left ruins at Cyrene, Leptis Magna and Sabratha, little other evidence remains of these ancient cultures.
Phoenicians
The Phoenicians were the first to establish trading posts in Libya, when the merchants of Tyre (in present-day Lebanon) developed commercial relations with the Berber tribes and made treaties with them to ensure their cooperation in the exploitation of raw materials. By the 5th century BC, Carthage, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, had extended its hegemony across much of N.Africa, where a distinctive civilisation, known as Punic, came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included Oea (Tripoli), Libdah (Leptis Magna) and Sabratha. All these were in an area that was later called Tripolis, or "Three Cities". Libya's current-day capital Tripoli takes its name from this.
