Tripoli, Libya
The capital and the biggest town of Libya - Tripoli (Таrabulus-ale-Garb) is located in northwest of the country on a shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The population of the city is about 2600000 inhabitants.
The settlement was, probably, based by finikians in the VIIth century BC under the name Heа. About 105 years BC in the Vth century AC the city was under the authority of Rome, then of vandals, and later - Byzantium. In the VIIth century Tripoli was occupied by Arabs, from the XVIth century till 1911 it was in the compound of Ottoman Empire, then till 1943 was the capital of Italian colony Libya. When in 1951 Libya has received independence, in the country two capitals acted: Tripoli and Benghazi, but in the beginning of 70th years the rank of capital was undividedly taken into possession by Tripoli. Received since 1963 incomes from transit of petroleum have introduced a big contribution to the development of the city.
Today Tripoli is the main commercial and industrial and financial center of the country, and also the largest seaport. Here textile, tanning, oil refining, alimentary industries, handicraft industries and fishery are advanced. In the city the enterprises on effecting building materials and tobacco items work. There is an international airport.
The old part of the city saves a look peculiar to many cities of the Arabian East: low (in one - two floors) houses with flat roofs, striving at skies minarets of mosques, colorful markets. In mere Tripoli and other places ancient constructions erected yet by Romans were saved.
In Tripoli there is a huge quantity of museums: of natural history, archeological, ethnographical, epigraphical, a museum of Muslim faith and other. Among architectural monuments there are triumphal arc of Mark Avrelius (II century), mosques of Nag (presumably the Xth century, reconstructed in the XVIIth century), Каrmanli (the XVIIIth century), Gurja (the XIXth century); «the Red Palace " (the first centuries AC, rearrangements of the XIVth, XVIth and XXth centuries; nowadays archeological and other museums).
In Tripoli there is University Alfateh, National archive and governmental library.