Fezzan in the context of "Ghat, Libya"

The Italo-Turkish War (Turkish: Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", Italian: Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured coastal areas of the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet, of which the main sub-provinces were Fezzan (Turkish: Fizan), Cyrenaica (Turkish: Sirenayka), and Tripoli (Turkish: Trablusgarp) itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which would later merge into Italian Libya.

During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea. In the 1912 Treaty of Ouchy, which ended the war and gave Italy the possession of Libya, the Italians agreed to return the Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire. However, the vagueness of the text, combined with subsequent adverse events unfavourable to the Ottoman Empire (the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and World War I), allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 122 of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), confirmed by Article 15 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

In Libya there are currently 106 districts, second level administrative subdivisions known in Arabic as baladiyat (singular baladiyah). The number has varied since 2013 between 99 and 108. The first level administrative divisions in Libya are currently the governorates (muhafazat), which have yet to be formally delineated, but which were originally tripartite as: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest; and later divided into ten governorates.

Prior to 2013 there were twenty-two first level administrative subdivisions known by the term shabiyah (Arabic singular شعبية šaʿbiyya, plural šaʿbiyyāt) which constituted the districts of Libya. In the 1990s the shabiyat had replaced an older baladiyat system.

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The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the northeastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates today's Sahara, and parts of the Libyan Desert include the Sahara's most arid and least populated regions; this is chiefly what sets the Libyan Desert apart from the greater Sahara. The consequent absence of grazing, and near absence of waterholes or wells needed to sustain camel caravans, prevented Trans-Saharan trade between Kharga (the Darb al Arbein) close to the Nile, and Murzuk in the Libyan Fezzan. This obscurity saw the region overlooked by early European explorers, and it was not until the early 20th century and the advent of the motor car before the Libyan Desert started to be fully explored.

The Garamantes (Ancient Greek: Γαράμαντες, romanized: Garámantes; Latin: Garamantes) were ancient peoples, who may have descended from Berber tribes, Toubou tribes, and Saharan pastoralists that settled in the Fezzan region by at least 1000 BC and established a civilization that flourished until its end in the late 7th century AD. The Garamantes first emerged as a major regional power in the mid-2nd century AD and established a kingdom that spanned roughly 180,000 km (70,000 sq mi) in the Fezzan region of southern Libya. Their growth and expansion was based on a complex and extensive qanat irrigation system (Berber: foggaras), which supported a strong agricultural economy and a large population. They subsequently developed the first urban society in a major desert that was not centered on a river system; their largest town, Garama, had a population of around four thousand, with an additional six thousand living in surrounding suburban areas. At its pinnacle, the Garamantian kingdom established and maintained a "standard of living far superior to that of any other ancient Saharan society" and was composed of "brilliant farmers, resourceful engineers, and enterprising merchants who produced a remarkable civilization."

Germa, Jerma, Jarma, Djourma, Djerma, Djarma (Arabic: جرمة), known in ancient times as Garama, is an archaeological site in Libya. It was the capital of the Garamantian Kingdom.

The Garamantes were a Saharan people living in the Fezzan in the northeastern Sahara Desert. Garamantian power climaxed during the second and the third centuries AD, often in conflict with the Roman Empire to the north. Garama had a population of some four thousand and another six thousand living in villages within a 5 km radius.

The Second Italo-Senussi War, also referred to as the pacification of Libya, was a conflict that occurred during the Italian colonization of Libya between Italian military forces (composed mainly by colonial troops from Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia) and indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order. The war lasted from 1923 until 1932, when the principal Senussi leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, was captured and executed. The Libyan genocide took place during and after the conflict.

Fighting took place in all three of Libya's provinces (Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica), but was most intense and prolonged in the mountainous Jebel Akhdar region of Cyrenaica. The war led to the mass deaths of the indigenous people of Cyrenaica, totalling one quarter of the region's population of 225,000. Italian war crimes included the use of chemical weapons, execution of surrendering combatants, and the mass killing of civilians, while the Senussis were accused of torture and mutilation of captured Italians and refusal to take prisoners since the late 1910s. Italian authorities forcibly expelled 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements, many of which were then given to Italian settlers.

The Ubari Desert, Idehan Ubari, Idehan Awbari (Idehan means fine sand in Tamasheq) or Ubari Erg is an erg in the hyper-arid Fezzan region of southwestern Libya with a surface area of approximately 58,000 km. The area of the Ubari desert has been traditionally inhabited by Tuareg people, a Berber ethnic and traditionally nomadic pastoralist group.

Wadi Mathendous is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Mesak Settafet escarpment, located in the southwestern Fezzan region in Libya. It contains many petroglyphs of figures and objects, as well as other rock art. The chiseled animals include elephants, giraffes, aurochs, wildcats, and crocodiles. These rock engravings and cave paintings have been dated to the Neolithic period, around 6000 BC.