Cyrenaica
The Cyrenaica (also Cyrenaica; Arab برقة, DMG Barqa; Greek Κυρηναία; Latin Cyrenae ) is a landscape in eastern Libya, and one of the three major historical provinces of the country, next to Tripolitania in the northwest and Fezzan in the southwest. My name comes from the ancient city of Cyrene ago, the old Arab- Turkish name of the region is Barqa after the city.
Geography
The Cyrenaica Tripolitania and Fezzan is next to one of the three historical provinces of Libya's Great. It lies on the Mediterranean coast between the Gulf of Sidra and the Egyptian border. The area is 857,000 km ² in size, according to other sources 818,619 km ², with a population of 1,622,480 (as of 2003).
Capital and political center is Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya. The landscape is in the north from a narrow coastal plain, behind which the ridge Jabal al - Akhdar (Italian Montagna Verde) rises. In the south, the Libyan desert expands, the most important oases al - Jaghbub and the Kufra oases.
On the territory of the former province of Cyrenaica were large until 2007, ten of the 32 municipalities of Libya:
The three historic United Provinces 1951-1961
Administrative divisions in Libya 2001-2007
History
In ancient times, was the Berber tribes of Cyrenaica, the Libyans settled that repeatedly attacked Egypt and in the 10th century BC even gained control of Egypt. Since the 7th century BC the Greeks founded several colonies developed on the coast, from which important cities ( póleis ).
The most significant was founded 631 BC by Greek colonists of Cyrene, the island of Thera, which they left because of overpopulation and famine. Their leader Aristotle took the Libyan name Battus. His dynasty, the Battiaden, was able to assert BC until 440 against fierce opposition from neighboring nations.
In Cyrene worked until about 355 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene, and later he founded the philosophical school of Cyrenaics ( see also Aristippus the Younger ).
After the area was initially ruled from 322 BC by the Diadochi Ophelias and from 118 BC by a younger branch of the Ptolemies, she came 96 BC as Cyrenaica under the rule of Rome. In late antiquity under the Diocletian reform of the empire province of Creta et Cyrene which was divided, so that the Cyrenaica under the name Libya superior own province was.
643 conquered during the Islamic expansion Arab Muslims the country. Since then, the Cyrenaica was mostly controlled by Egypt. The foreign rule and the incursion of the Banu Hilal in the 11th century led to the final decline of the urban culture. So Cyrene was abandoned and Barka new center of the province. This came with Egypt in 1517 under the rule of the Ottomans.
1843 founded Muhammad al- Sanusi in Cyrenaica the monastic state of the Sufi Sanusiya Brotherhood. The first religious house was built in al - Bayda in the Jabal Akhdar. The tightly organized religious expanded greatly in the following years, the mother convent in al - Bayda originated from 80 other religious houses, especially in Cyrenaica but also in other regions of Libya. After the Ottoman governor was going on in Libya against the Brotherhood, had to be relocated in 1856 in the center of the 500 km southeast idyllic oasis al - Jaghbub. 1895 the Order was expelled from there further to the south in the Kufra oases.
1912 had the Ottomans alongside Tripolitania and Cyrenaica to Italy to cede. Italy summed up his North African conquests to the colony Libia together. During World War II Cyrenaica was from December 1940 venue eventful struggles. There were heavy fighting between the British and the German - Italian troops of the Afrika Korps under General Erwin Rommel especially around Tobruk. In December 1942, British troops occupied Cyrenaica final.
1951 went to the Cyrenaica in the newly independent Libya.
On 6 March 2012, the Cyrenaica told a gathering of several thousand tribal leaders, militia commanders and politicians in Benghazi against the will of the Libyan central government for semi- autonomous. They raised about the limits of the historical province also claims to parts of the oil region of Fezzan and an extended long coast. Only about regional issues should continue to be regulated by the National Transitional Council. For the control of regional affairs, a new Council body was used and entrusted with its leadership Ahmed al - Zubair. This was one of the longest detained political prisoners in the reign of Gaddafi, and after the fall of the regime was a member of the National Transitional Council.