Tripoli, Libya

The city also known as Tripoli-of-the-West. At the heart of Tripolitania (the northwestern part of the country) was its metropolis, Tripoli, for centuries a terminal for caravans plying the Saharan trade routes and a port sheltering pirates and slave traders. Tripolitania's cultural ties were with the Maghrib (Maghreb), of which it was a part geographically and culturally and with which it shared a common history.

Libya’s earliest inhabitants were the semi-nomadic Berbers, whose descendants still live throughout North Africa’s Atlas Mountains. Phoenician merchants from the Levant began to settle in what is today Libya from around 1000 BC

The Phoenicians founded Tripoli in the 8th century BC. It originally comprised three neighborhoods situated in the current location of Al Mina. It was the center of a Phoenician confederation with Sidon and Tyre and Arados Island, hence the name "Tripolis", meaning "triple city". This city enjoyed the highest repute amongst the cities of Phoenicia for there, as it happens, the Phoenicians held their common council and deliberated on matters of supreme importance.

Roman settlements appeared in Libya in the third century BC. Later Rome triumphed over Carthage and destroyed the city in 149 B.C. The Phoenician Tripolis: Oya, Sparta, and Leptis-Magna, close to the modern Tripoli, became a Roman city.

The Arabs arrived in Libya much before Islam, from Yemen and settled around the water recourses of the mountains. In 10th Century AD the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Muiz, conquered the city. It became an independent province encompassing Lattakia (Syria), experiencing a commercial and cultural boom that rendered it a significant center of Shiia.

In 1109 Tripoli was conquered by Raymond de Saint Gilles, Count of Toulouse. It became the capital of Tripoli County, one of the main Crusader states, and remained under domination by the Franks for almost two centuries under the name “Triple”.

In 1289 the Mamluks conquered the Crusader city that was situated on the peninsula, razed it to the ground but keeping the St. Gilles Citadel and the Cathedral, today known as “Taynal Mosque”, and rebuilt a new city two kilometers to the east at the foot of the citadel and straddling the Abu Ali river. During this period, Tripoli witnessed a substantial growth in its economic and political power.
Tripoli, Libya

Ancient city of Hippo Regius (Annaba)

There are several other Phoenician settlements on the northern coast of Africa. Hippo Regius was founded by the Phoenicians in the 12th century BC.

Hippo Regius is an ancient port on the coast of North Africa, located near the modern town of Annaba (formerly Bône) in Algeria. Because of its strategic position, it was soon a regular trading post. The city is in Numidia, but was incorporated into Africa Proconsularis by Augustus.

In AD 430, the Vandals advanced eastwards along the North African coast and laid siege to the walled city of Hippo Regius. The city fell to the Vandals and King Geiseric made it the first capital of the Vandal Kingdom until the capture of Carthage in 439.

It was later conquered by the Eastern Roman Empire in 534. Under Roman control it was first made a municipium (a community that exercised partial rights of Roman citizenship) and later a colonia (Roman settlement with full rights of citizenship).

Christianity appears to have been brought to Hippo from Italy and from the East. The Christian quarter was in the port area, within the pre-Roman settlement on the outskirts of the Roman city and its forum. Its first known bishop bore a Greek name; Augustine's immediate predecessor, Valerius, still spoke Greek and had difficulty with Latin.

It was kept under Roman rule until 698, when it fell to the Muslims; the Arabs rebuilt the town in the eighth century.

Ancient city of Hippo Regius (Annaba)

City of Tripoli

Tripoli is a capital city and principle seaport on the North African coast of Libya. Tripoli was founded in 7th century BC, by Phoenician. The Phoenicians settled in Uiat, the ancient Tripoli, in a place than endured a deep harbor, well protected by a promontory to the northeast and guarded to the west by a low hill. It became one of the four Punic settlement of significance (the others being Carthage, Sabratha and Leptis Magna). Tripoli is Libya’s only ancient city to have been continuously occupied, since that time.

Following the fall of the Carthage in 146 BC, the city came briefly under the jurisdiction of the Nubian kingdom, before becoming a Roman protectorate. Under the Romans, who named the city Oea, Tripoli grew prosperous.

The first city wall may be attributed to the 4th century AD, when the attacks of nomads from the interior became a menace. When the Vandals overran North Africa in the 5th century the damage to the city was devastating.

In 643 AD Tripoli was conquered by Arabs headed by Amr Ibn al-As who entered the city from the sea, probably from the northwest, where there were no fortifications.

By 1000, Tripoli had become an important center of intercontinental trade between sub-Saharan Africa, southern Europe, Egypt, and the Middle East.

Peter of Navarre, who had conquered Oran in 1509 and Bougie in January 1510, reached Tripoli with his Spanish troops in July 1510; the city was much damaged by the attack and the looting of Spaniards, who however reconstructed the castle in the form it has preserved more or less up to this day.

The city was then occupied by the Ottomans in 1551. In 1771 the Ottoman governor of Tripoli established his own dynasty the Qaramanli dynasty which lasted until the Ottomans re-occupied the area in 1835.
City of Tripoli