Cyrenaica

Cyrenaica برقة
Region
The traditional region of Cyrenaica (dark green), and the modern expansion (light green)
Country	Libya
Government
• Type	Kingdom (632-440 BC; 276-249 BC; 163-96 BC; 34-30 BC) Republic (440-322 BC; 249-246 BC) Nome (322-276 BC; 246-96 BC) Roman province (74 BC-643 AD) Vilayet (1879-1888 AD) Mutasarrıf (1888-1911 AD) Italian colony (1911-1934 AD) Military administration (1943-1949 AD) Emirate (643-? AD; 1949-1951 AD) Province (1951-1963 AD)

Cyrenaica (/ˌsaɪrəˈneɪɪkəˌˌsɪr-/ SY-rə-NAY-ik-ə-,-SIRR-ə) or Kyrenaika (Arabic: برقة, romanized: Barqah, Koinē Greek: Κυρηναϊκή [ἐπαρχία], romanized: Kurēnaïkḗ [eparkhíā], after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between the 16th and 25th meridians east, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, also known as Pentapolis ("Five Cities") in antiquity, was part of the Roman province of Crete and Cyrenaica, later divided into Libya Pentapolis and Libya Sicca. During the Islamic period, the area came to be known as Barqa, after the city of Barca.

Cyrenaica became an Italian colony in 1911. After the 1934 formation of Italian Libya, the Cyrenaica province was designated as one of the three primary provinces of the country. During World War II, it fell under British military and civil administration from 1943 until 1951, and finally in the Kingdom of Libya from 1951 until 1963. The region that used to be Cyrenaica officially until 1963 has formed several shabiyat, the administrative divisions of Libya, since 1995. The 2011 Libyan Civil War started in Cyrenaica, which came largely under the control of the National Transitional Council (headquartered in Benghazi) for most of the war.^[1] In 2012, a body known as the Cyrenaica Transitional Council unilaterally declared Cyrenaica to be an autonomous region of Libya.^[2][3]