ABSTRACT
Libya’s physical geography and location have been determining factors in its history. A narrow fringe of coastal plain, running the length of the country’s 1,075 miles (1,730 kilometers) of Mediterranean coastline, abuts with the Libyan Desert, the dominating feature of both ancient and modern Libya. The struggle to hold back the desert—or to live within it—has been pervasive. Libya is about two and a half times the size of the state of Texas, yet only 5 percent of the country’s 680,000 square miles (1,769,000 square kilometers) are economically usable even with sufficient irrigation. It has no rivers and no true mountains except for the Tibesti massif, which rises over more than 9,840 feet (3,000 meters) near the Chadian border.
