Tripoli, Libya
capital city of Libya
Tripoli, historically known as Tripoli-of-the-West, is the capital and largest city of Libya, with a population of about 3.246 million people in 2021. It is located in the northwest of Libya on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean Sea and forming a bay. It includes the port of Tripoli and the country's largest commercial and manufacturing center. It is also the site of the University of Tripoli.
Tripoli was founded in the 7th century BC by the Phoenicians, who gave it the Libyco-Berber name Oyat (Punic: 𐤅𐤉𐤏𐤕, romanized: Wyʿt), before passing into the hands of the Greek rulers of Cyrenaica as Oea (Ancient Greek: Ὀία, romanized: Oía). Due to the city's long history, there are many sites of archeological significance in Tripoli. Tripoli may also refer to the sha'biyah (top-level administrative division in the Libyan system), the Tripoli District.
Name
In the Arab world, Tripoli is also known as "Tripoli-of-the-West" (Arabic: طرابلس الغرب, romanized: Ṭarābulus al-Gharb), to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon, known in Arabic as Ṭarābulus ash-Shām (طرابلس الشام), meaning 'Tripoli of the Levant'. It is affectionately called "The Mermaid of the Mediterranean" (Arabic: عروسة البحر, romanized: ʿArūsat al-Baḥr, lit. 'bride of the sea'), describing its turquoise waters and whitewashed buildings.
The name derives from Ancient Greek Trípolis (Τρίπολις), from Τρεις Πόλεις, Treis Póleis, lit. 'three cities' – referring to Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3579. VIAF identifies the subject as 125504622. The Library of Congress control number is n81146957. Authority coordinates are 32.888, 13.188. None of the 5 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tripoli, Libya” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.