Fezzan

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Former province of southwest Libya, with an area of about 213,000 square miles (340,800 sq km).

Fezzan was located south of the former province of Tripolitania, which bordered it approximately along the 30th parallel. The southern part of the former province of Cyrenaica lay to the east. Fezzan had international frontiers with Algeria to the west and with Chad and Niger to the south. The region's chief town and administrative center is Sebha, largely a twentieth-century creation; most other settlements have developed around small but long-established oasis villages. Fezzan is now divided into Sebha, alShati, Awbari, Murzuq, Ghat, and al-Jufrah; combined population (1984 census) is some 214,000.

Fezzan is characterized by a series of east-west depressions over artesian waters and oases, some extensive. Widely scattered in the surrounding desert, these oases are the only settled areas. Along the southern and southwestern borders, the land rises toward the Ahaggar and Tibesti massifs of the central Sahara.

Fezzan is approximately one-third the distance from Tripoli to Lake Chad and, historically, has been a main artery for caravans between the Mediterranean Sea and central Africa. It has always had a certain Sudanic ethnic and cultural character. Its oases have traditionally provided shade, water, camels, and dates for caravans and, in the past - despite intermittent domination by Tripoli - derived modest prosperity as transshipment centers of the northbound slave trade and the southbound traffic in manufactured goods. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire imposed direct rule from Tripoli, and the Saharan trade prospered intermittently until its terminal decline at the century's end. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Fezzan became one of several centers of the Sanusi order.

Italy invaded Libya in 1911 and in 1914 briefly occupied Fezzan's main oases. The province was re-conquered by Italy in 1929 and 1930 and was designated Territorio Militare del Sud (Southern Military Territory), administered from Hon. It had by then become a social and economic backwater, cut off from most traditional trade contacts. During World War II, Free French forces advancing from Chad in 1942 and 1943 expelled the Italians and set up a military administration closely linked with Algeria and Tunisia. Fezzan became one of the three constituent provinces of the United Kingdom of Libya declared independent in December 1951.

Although the poorest and least populous of Libya's three regions, Fezzan gained a certain cachet after the 1969 revolution, because the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, had been educated and conceived his revolution there. Since 1969, the infrastructure has been developed and attempts made to promote agriculture with abundant newly discovered water reserves, which are also being piped to northwest Libya. Crude oil has been found in the Murzuq Basin and large quantities of iron ore in the Wadi Shati, but commercial exploitation has been slow. The region still relies on northern Libya for most of its economic and social needs.

Bibliography

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. The Making of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colonization, and Resistance, 1830 - 1932. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Wright, John. Libya, Chad and the Central Sahara. Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 1989.

— JOHN L. WRIGHT

Fezzan

Wan Caza dunes in Fezzan.

History of Libya
This article is part of a series
Ancient Libya
Islamic Tripolitania and Cyrenaica
Ottoman Libya (1551-1912)
Italian Colony (1912-1942)
Allied occupation (1942-1951)
Kingdom of Libya (1951-1969)
Modern Libya (1969-Today)
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Fezzan (Arabic: فزان transliterated: Fuzzan) (Latin name Phasania) is a south-western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.

Contents 1 Administrative division 2 Geography and population 3 History 4 Notes 5 External links

Administrative division

Fezzan was formerly a province under the Ottoman Turks and Italy and a governorate ("muhafazah" or "wilayah") of Libya (alongside Tripolitania and Cyrenaica), in the system of administrative divisions abolished in 1983 in favor of smaller districts or "baladiyah". The "Baladiyat"-system was reorganized in 1987 and was replaced in 1995 by the "Sha'biyat"-system.

The former Fezzan province contains the districts (Sha'biyat) of Wadi Al Shatii, Wadi Al Hayaa, Al Jufrah, Ghadamis, Murzuq, Sabha and Ghat. The former capital and still largest city is Sabha.

Geography and population

Fezzan is crossed in the north by the Ash-Shati Valley (Wadi Al Shatii) and in the west by the Wadi Irawan. These two areas, along with portions of the Tibesti Mountains crossing the Chadian border and a sprinkling of remote oases and border posts, are the only parts of the Fezzan able to support settled populations. Large dune seas known as ergs cover much of the remaining land. The region's inhabitants include the nomadic Tuareg in the southwest and the Toubou in the southeast. These pastoralist populations often cross the borders of Algeria, Chad and Niger freely. In the north, Arab, Berber and settled Tuareg and Toubou mix. While making up some 30% of the land area of Libya, the Fezzan supports little of its population. Despite this, large towns like Shaba, survive on near surface water in the wadis of the north and west. The northeast area is dominated by Haruj, a large and unpopulated volcanic field.

History

From the 5th century BCE to the 5th century of the modern era, the Fezzan was home to the Garamantian Empire, a city state which operated the Trans-Saharan trade routes between the Carthaginians -- and later the Roman Empire -- and Sahelian states of west and central Africa. During the 13th and 14th century, portions of the Fezzan were part of the Kanem Empire, while the Ottoman rulers of North Africa asserted their control over the region in the 17th century.

Beginning in 1911, the Fezzan was occupied by Italy. However, Italy's control of the region was precarious until at least 1923, with the rise of the Italian Fascist regime. The Italians were resisted in their early attempts at conquest by Berber and Arab adherents to the militant Sanusiya Sufi religious order. The Tuareg clans of the region were only ever nominally pacified by European expansion before the Second World War.

Free French troops occupied Murzuk, a chief town of Fezzan, on 16 January 1943, and proceeded to administer Fezzan with a staff stationed in Sabha.^[1] But French administration was largely exercised through Fezzan notables of the family of Sayf an Nasr.^[1] Disquieting to the tribes in western Fezzan was the administrative attachment of Ghat, and its surrounding area, to French occupied southern Algeria.^[1] However, when the French military control ceased in 1951 all of Fezzan became part of the Kingdom of Libya.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Berry, LaVerle Bennette "Chapter 1 - Historical Setting -World War II and Independence - Allied Administration" Area Handbook for Libya (1987 edition) Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; available at: A Country Study: Libya, accessed 17 May 2009

External links

• Map from Google showing a large area of Fezzan and its important cities.
• Map of Fezzan from Encarta online.
• Worldstatesmen.org's History and list of rulers of Fezzan.
• Hostkingdom.net's History and list of rulers of Fezzan.
• Lexiorient.com's article on Fezzan.

Coordinates: 26°19′58″N 13°25′31″E / 26.3328°N 13.4253°E / 26.3328; 13.4253

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