Tripoli & Tripolitania

Phoenician traders founded three coastal towns here — Oea, which became Tripoli, Sabratha and Leptis Magna — and the Greek name Tripolis, "three cities", gave the region its name. After Carthage fell they passed to Numidian and then Roman rule, grew rich on olive oil and the Saharan trade, and Leptis reached its height under Septimius Severus, born there in 145, who lavished buildings on his home town. Ghadames, the Roman Cidamus, was the gateway for caravans heading south.

Arab armies arrived in the 640s, and the Amazigh of the Nafusa mountains became followers of Ibadi Islam, which some of their towns still keep. Spain seized Tripoli in 1510 and handed it to the Knights of St John, and the Ottomans took it in 1551. Under the Karamanli dynasty, which ruled from 1711 to 1835, Tripoli was a corsair port whose demands for tribute led to war with the United States in 1801.

Italy invaded in 1911, built a European new town in Tripoli and settled colonists on the coast. After independence Tripoli became the capital, and in 2011 the region was central to the uprising: Misrata held out through a long siege, the Nafusa mountains became a rebel stronghold, and Gaddafi was killed at Sirte, near his birthplace. The Islamic State group held Sirte in 2015–2016. In 2019–2020 eastern-based forces under Khalifa Haftar tried to take Tripoli before a ceasefire in October 2020, and since then control of the region's towns has been divided among local armed groups aligned, to varying degrees, with the rival authorities.

Tripolitania looks to the Mediterranean and to Tunisia, and its dialect is partly intelligible to Tunisians. Tripoli's old families, merchant clans and long-established Italian community, now gone, gave the capital a cosmopolitan past. Misrata has a strong identity as a city of traders and, since 2011, of a powerful local armed force and business class.

The Amazigh are the region's main minority, concentrated in the Nafusa mountain towns such as Yefren, Jadu, Kabaw and Nalut, and on the coast at Zuwara. Their language and culture, suppressed under Gaddafi, have been promoted openly since 2011. The people of Ghadames are also mainly Berber.

Weddings are grand, family affairs lasting several days, Ramadan evenings are spent visiting, and tea poured in several rounds is the ritual of hospitality. Loyalty to town and tribe often counts for more than national politics.

Tripoli has over a million people and dominates the region, with Misrata, Zawiya, Zliten, Khoms and Gharyan the other main towns; Sirte is smaller. Ministries, the central bank, the national oil company and most businesses are based in the capital, and the Mellitah gas complex west of Tripoli exports gas to Italy by pipeline.

Life goes on despite the politics: cafés and malls in Tripoli, fishing and farming on the coastal plain, olive groves and figs in the Nafusa. Public-sector salaries funded by oil pay a large share of families. Power cuts, fuel queues, cash shortages, and bouts of fighting between armed groups disrupt daily life.

Many families displaced since 2011 have returned, but some towns still show the damage of past battles.

Tripoli's kitchen shows the city's past: Ottoman stews, Maghrebi couscous and an Italian taste for pasta. Imbakbaka is pasta cooked in one pot in a spiced tomato sauce with meat, and rishta is homemade pasta. Osban is guts stuffed with offal and herbs, and sharba is a lamb and vegetable soup with mint and tomato.

Bazin, a dome of barley dough in a sauce of lamb, potatoes and eggs, is one of the best-known Libyan dishes. Along the coast, fish is grilled or cooked in sauce, and the Nafusa mountains produce olive oil and figs. Ghadames and the desert oases supply dates.

Sweets include maqrud, semolina pastries filled with dates. Libyan tea, boiled to raise a foam, is served in rounds, the last sometimes with peanuts or almonds.

Leptis Magna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies on the shore near Khoms: the four-way Severan arch, the Severan forum and basilica, the market, the theatre and an amphitheatre. Sabratha, also a World Heritage Site, west of Tripoli, has its restored stage building with three storeys of columns, temples and mosaics.

Tripoli's medina holds the Gurgi and Karamanli mosques, Ottoman houses and the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, built in the 2nd century AD, while the Red Castle, Assaraya al-Hamra, rises beside Martyrs' Square and houses the national museum. Misrata has a long waterfront and a busy port.

Inland, the Nafusa mountains rise as an escarpment above the Jafara plain, with the granary of Qasr al-Haj, the fortified qasr of Nalut and the old towns of Kabaw and Yefren. The old town of Ghadames, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has covered lanes, rooftop terraces once reserved for women, and palm gardens.