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Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1947. During the Second World War, Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign.
Libya extends over 679,182 square miles (1,759,540 sq km), making it the fourth largest country in Africa by area and the seventeenth largest nation in the world by size. Libya is somewhat smaller than Indonesia, and roughly the size of the U.S. state of Alaska.
Since 2011, Libya has been involved in a political and humanitarian crisis, and by 2014, two rival authorities claimed to govern Libya, which led to a second civil war, with parts of Libya split between separate governments, based in Tripoli and Tobruk, as well as various tribal and Islamist militias.
Libya, country located in North Africa. Most of the country lies in the Sahara desert, and much of its population is concentrated along the coast and its immediate hinterland, where Tripoli (Ṭarābulus), the de facto capital, and Benghazi (Banghāzī), another major city, are located.
Libya’s rival legislative bodies have approved a unified state budget for the first time in more than a decade, in a rare moment of cooperation in a country fractured by years of conflict.
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Libya facts: Official web sites of Libya, links and information on Libya's art, culture, geography, history, travel and tourism, cities, the capital city, airlines, embassies, tourist boards and newspapers.