Provinces of Libya

Libya was divided into provinces from 1934 to the institution of the governorate system in 1963.

After Italy took the area from the Ottoman Empire in 1912 it was administered as a single administrative unit called Italian North Africa. From 1927 to 1934, the territory was split into two separate colonies, each run by their own Italian governor: Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania. In 1934 Italy adopted the name "Libya" as the official name of the reunified area, and administratively divided it up into the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan.

In 1937 Cyrenaica and Tripolitania provinces split, with northern Cyrenaica becoming Benghazi Province and Derna Province, and northern Tripolitania splitting into Tripoli Province and Misurata Province. Fezzan was not split, but the whole southern desert area was militarily administered as the Libyan Sahara Territory (Il Territorio Militare del Sud o Territorio del Sahara Libico). Libyan Sahara was divided into four military districts administered from the towns (oases) of Ghat, Birak, Murzuk and Houn. The Senussi Kufra area in the southeast was not separately administered by the Italians although in 1932 they built a fort at El Tag.

After the French and British occupied Libya in 1943, it was again split into three provinces: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan-Ghadames in the southwest.

See also

• Subdivisions of Libya
• Districts of Libya
• Governorates of Libya