The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, better known as Libya, is located in central North Africa. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Egypt, on the west by Algeria and Tunisia, and on the south by Chad, Niger, and Sudan. With a surface area totaling 1.76 million square kilometers (680,000 square miles), it is the fourth largest country in Africa and the fifteenth largest in the world.

An arid state, there is not a single permanent river or stream in the entire country, and only 2 percent of Libya receives enough rainfall for settled agriculture. Although the desert predominates in Libya, the country offers surprising geographical diversity. Less than 20 percent is covered by sand dunes, notably the Awbari and Marzuq Sand Seas in the southwest and Kalanshiyu and Rabyanah Sand Seas in the southeast, with much of the remainder covered by rocky or...