Libya is a country in North Africa on the Mediterranean Sea. It is large, mostly desert, and rich in oil; oil has long been the centre of its money and of other countries’ interest in it. The capital is Tripoli. Several million people live there. From 1969 to 2011 it was ruled by Colonel Gaddafi, who built a political system he said was based on Islam and was different from both communism and capitalism. For many years Libya and the West were on very bad terms: in 1986 the United States bombed the country, and later there were long sanctions. Though actually the tidy old-textbook picture stops too soon. In 2011 Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in a civil war, and since then Libya has often been split between rival governments, with fighting and a hard daily life in many places. It is a proper name, so it takes a capital L. English has used the name since the 1500s.