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With an area of almost 1.8 e6km2, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production. Libya lacks a formally constituted government and is loosely administrated by a coalition of rebel groups known as the National Transitional Council that came together during 2011 to give local leadership to the forces seeking to overthrow the previous government, known as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية العظمى al-Jamāhīriyyah al-‘Arabiyyah al-Lībiyyah ash-Sha‘biyyah al-Ishtirākiyyah al-‘Uẓmá). The civil war of February to October 2011 and the collapse of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya overturned a system of governance that had been in power for more than 40 years, resulting in the nation entering a leadership vacuum lacking any formal government structure. Rivalries, factional divisions and disagreements between so called rebel groups both within and seperate to the NTC emerged prior to the killing of Muammar Gaddafi and the crushing of the previous government and legislative structure of the nation. The leadership of any formalised government that may emerge in Libya remains a murky and confused matter. |