Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa and the sixteenth largest country in the world. It is on the Mediterranean with Egypt to the east, Tunisia to the northwest, Algeria to the west, Niger and Chad to the south, and Sudan to the southeast. Although the oil discoveries of the 1960s have brought immense wealth, at the time of its independence it was an extremely poor desert state whose only important physical asset appeared to be its strategic location at the midpoint of Africa's northern rim.
Cyrenaica or Kyrenaika, is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between the 16th and 25th meridians east, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, also known as Pentapolis in antiquity, was part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into Libya Pentapolis and Libya Sicca. During the Islamic period, the area came to be known as Barqa, after the city of Barca.
Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi was a Libyan political and religious leader who was King of Libya from 24 December 1951 until his ouster in the 1 September 1969 coup d'état. He ruled over the United Kingdom of Libya from 1951 to 1963, after which the country became known as simply the Kingdom of Libya. Idris had served as Emir of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania from the 1920s until 1951. He was the chief of the Senussi Muslim order.
The national flag of Libya was originally introduced in 1951, following the creation of the Kingdom of Libya. It was designed by Omar Faiek Shennib and approved by King Idris Al Senussi who comprised the UN delegation representing the three regions of Cyrenaica, Fezzan, and Tripolitania at UN unification discussions.
The national emblem of Yemen depicts a golden eagle of Saladin with a scroll between its claws. On the scroll is written the name of the country in Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية or Al-Jumhuriyyah Al-Yamaniyah. The chest of the eagle contains a shield that depicts a coffee plant and the Marib Dam, with seven blue wavy stripes below. The flagstaffs on the right and left of the eagle hold the flag of Yemen.
The national flag of Egypt is a tricolour consisting of the three equal horizontal red, white, and black bands of the Egyptian revolutionary flag that dates back to the 1952 Egyptian Revolution. The flag bears Egypt's national emblem, the Egyptian eagle of Saladin, centred in the white band.
In Libya there are currently 106 districts, second level administrative subdivisions known in Arabic as baladiyat. The number has varied since 2013 between 99 and 108. The first level administrative divisions in Libya are currently the governorates (muhafazat), which have yet to be formally deliniated, but which were originally tripartite as: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest; and later divided into ten governorates.
This armorial of sovereign states shows the coat of arms, national emblem, or seal for every sovereign state. Although some countries do not have an official national emblem, unofficial emblems which are de facto used as national emblems are also shown below.
The star and crescent is a symbol which is a conjoined representation of a crescent and a star. It is used in various historical contexts, including as a prominent symbol of the Ottoman Empire, and in contemporary times used as a national symbol for some countries, and a recognized symbol of Islam. It was developed in the Greek colony of Byzantium ca. 300 BC, though it became more widely used as the royal emblem of Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator after he incorporated Byzantium into his kingdom for a short period. During the 5th century, it was present in coins minted by the Persian Sassanian Empire; the symbol was represented in the coins minted across the empire throughout the Middle East for more than 400 years from the 3rd century until the fall of the Sassanians after the Muslim conquest of Persia in the 7th century. The conquering Muslim rulers kept the symbol in their coinage during the early years of the caliphate, as the coins were exact replicas of the Sassanian coins.
The coat of arms of Egypt is known as the Republican Eagle or Egyptian Golden Eagle, is a heraldic golden eagle, facing the viewer's left (dexter). The eagle's breast is charged with an escutcheon bearing the red-white-black bands of the flag of Egypt rotated vertically, whilst the eagle's talons hold a scroll bearing the official name of the state written in Kufic script. The earliest version of the Eagle of Saladin was that used as the flag of Saladin, the first Sultan of Egypt, whilst the modern version of the eagle was adopted during the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Subsequently, the modern design of the eagle of Saladin was adopted as the coat of arms of numerous other states in the Arab World, such as the United Arab Republic, North Yemen, Iraq, South Yemen, the Libyan Arab Republic, and Palestine. The current eagle was modified in 1984 to its present form.
The current national emblem of Sudan was adopted in 1985.
The current coat of arms of Syria or coat of arms of the Syrian Arab Republic was adopted in 1980, following the 1977 dissolution of the Federation of Arab Republics, whose coat of arms had until then been used by its constituent states. This emblem consist of the Hawk of Quraish supporting a shield bearing the national flag of Syria, and a scroll of the words "Syrian Arab Republic". Since the start of the ongoing Syrian Civil War in March 2011, alternative coats of arms have been created by the Syrian opposition and the Federation of Northern Syria.
The Provinces of Libya were prescribed in 1934, during the last period of colonial Italian Libya, and continued through post-independence Libya until 1963 when the Governorates system was instituted.
Libya was a colony of Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911.
The official language of Libya is Modern Standard Arabic. Most residents speak one of the varieties of Arabic as a first language, most prominently Libyan Arabic, but also Egyptian Arabic and Tunisian Arabic.
The Allied administration of Libya was the control of the ex-colony of Italian Libya by the Allies from 13 May 1943 until Libyan independence was granted in 1951. It was divided into two parts:
The Southern Military Territory was a jurisdictional territory within the colony of Italian Libya (1911–1947), administered by the Italian military in the Libyan Sahara.
The Hawk of Quraish is a symbol which is found on a number of emblems, coats of arms and flags of several states of the Arab world. The traditions and recorded history about the Quraysh and Muhammad claim a falcon had been used as clan symbol. Therefore, several variants of the Quraishi hawk were and are seen in the flags, coat of arms, seals and emblems of several Arab states until today. In that meaning, the Hawk of Quraish is a rival to the Eagle of Saladin.
The Eagle of Saladin, known in Egypt as the Egyptian Eagle, and the Republican Eagle, is a heraldic eagle that serves as the coat of arms of many countries; Egypt, Iraq, Coat of arms of the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq (KRG), Palestine, and Yemen. Since the Egyptian 1952 coup d'etat, the eagle has been an iconic symbol of Egypt, and of Arab nationalism, particularly in Arab states that underwent anti-imperialist political change from the 1950s onwards. It was formerly the national symbol of the now defunct United Arab Republic, North Yemen, South Yemen, and the Libyan Arab Republic.
The 2008 Kufra conflict was an armed conflict in the Kufra region of Libya, between the pro-Toubou Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya (TFSL) faction, and the Libyan Government.
