Libya Habitat Guide

Libya sits at the heart of Mediterranean North Africa, surrounded by Chad and Niger to the south, Egypt and the Sudan to the east and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. It is the fourth largest country in Africa. Most of this area is covered with the greatest African desert, the mighty Sahara. There are three main provinces in the country – Tripolitania in the northwest, the Fezzan that includes everything south of Tripolitania, and Cyrenaica – the entire eastern half of the country. Northeastern Libya is the Jebel Akhdar area (also known as the Green Mountains), which is, true to its name, green and also perhaps the most beautiful part of the country. The rest of the country is mostly dry, except a narrow coastal strip that receives just enough rainfall to support agriculture and about 90% of the population. There are no rivers in Libya, and the main source of drinking water till recently was the wadis (watercourses) that catch rainwater. The Great Man-Made River project, one of the largest, most expensive engineering schemes in history has ingeniously tapped vast fossil aquifers in the south and southeast and transported the water stored there to the rest of the country via pipelines.

Coastal flora includes typical varieties of Mediterranean plants including olive and citrus. Inland, barring the lone acacia tree, vegetation is hardly found outside the oases. Inside the oases, the ubiquitous date palm shares space with figs and oleander. Libya lies on the migratory route of European birds flying to warmer African climes, so there is a great variety of bird life here. In the desert regions, fauna includes the ‘ship of the desert’ – the camel – and allegedly some herds of gazelle in remote areas, the fennec (a small, nocturnal, big-eared fox), lizards, snakes and scorpions.