Barqah

Historic region of North Africa; northern Barqah was settled by Greek colonists as early as ca. 631 BCE; area was then known as Pentapolis for the five major cities established: Euhesperides, Barce, Cyrene, Apollonia, and Tenchira; Cyrene was original capital; developed around crucial port on Mediterranean, on trade routes west from Alexandria; became a Roman province in combination with Crete in 67 BCE; conquered by Arabs in 643; part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century; as a result of the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), Cyrenaica was ceded to Italy in 1912 with many Italian peasants moving there; was a major theatre of operations during World War II after which Italian colonists evacuated, leaving area 98% Muslim and Arabic-speaking; until 1963 a province of the Kingdom of Libya.