Libya

AfricaCapital city: TripoliCapital metro: TripoliPresident: Aguila Saleh IssaPrime Minister: Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh
2026 population
7.5M
Rank #106 globally
Area
1.8M km² (679k sq mi)
Metros tracked
4
61% of population in metros
Composite score
3.6
Rank #153 globally

population: UN projection (1 Jul 2025) · indicators as of 2026-09-05 · 4 metros tracked

🗺️ Geography3 of 4 metros

Libya metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.

Loading map…
3 polygons

Hover for rank, click to open the metro page. Boundaries derived from Overture Maps administrative divisions; metros without source coverage are omitted.

🏙️ 4 tracked metros
4 metros
#862Tripoli★ Capital▲ Largest
2.1
🗂️ LBies

1 entry listed under Libya. Click any to see its metros and footprint.

1 total
📋 At a glance
Official language
Arabic
Government
Republic
Legislature
House of Representatives
Demonym
Libyan
Time zones
Eastern European Time, UTC+02:00
Driving side
Right
Calling code
+218
Internet TLD
.ly
ISO 3166
LY
Established
1551
Highest point
Bikku Bitti (2,267 m (7,438 ft))
National anthem
Libya, Libya, Libya

Facts via Wikidata.

💹 Economy and developmentUpper middle income
Human Dev. Index
#114 / 191
0.721
UNDP · 2023
GDP
#99 / 193
$48.1B
World Bank · 2025
GDP per capita
#108 / 193
$6.4k
World Bank · 2025
GDP/capita (PPP)
#106 / 190
$16.5k
World Bank · 2025
GNI/capita (Atlas)
#98 / 192
$7.3k
World Bank · 2025
Life expectancy
#126 / 194
71.1 yrs
World Bank · 2024
Median age
27.2 yrs
UN WPP · 2023
Urban population
#25 / 194
88%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. growth
1.0%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. density
#187 / 193
4/km²
World Bank · 2023
Foreign-born
#53 / 193
12.2%
World Bank · 2024
Rule of law
#151 / 175
0.13
V-Dem · 2025
Internet users
#94 / 193
82%
World Bank · 2024
Inflation
#54 / 185
1.8%
World Bank · 2025
CO₂ per capita
#171 / 192
8.8 t
Global Carbon Budget · 2024
Renewable electricity
#181 / 186
0%
Ember · 2024

Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.

Alliances & Organisations6 full memberships

Political & Economic

Subregional

Energy

Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer

🏛️ Leadership History15 leaders · click to expand

marks a leader associated with atrocities or defiance of law, systemic subversion of democratic institutions, or a criminal conviction. Convictions arising from political persecution, and annulled convictions, are excluded. denotes a monarch. These are editorial designations, applied per entry rather than derived automatically.

Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh✦ Current

2021Present

Prime Minister

Tenure: 5y 3m

Aguila Saleh Issa✦ Current

2014Present

President

Tenure: in office

Mohamed al-Menfi

20212014

President

Fayez al-Sarraj

20162021

Prime Minister

Tenure: 4y 11m

Fayez al-Sarraj

20162021

President

Tenure: 4y 11m

Aguila Saleh Issa

20142021

President

Tenure: 6y 7m

Abdullah al-Thani

20142021

Prime Minister

Tenure: 7y 0m

Nouri Abusahmain

20132016

President

Tenure: 2y 9m

Ali Zeidan

20122014

Prime Minister

Tenure: 1y 3m

Mohammed Magariaf

20122013

President

Tenure: 0y 9m

Abdurrahim El-Keib

20112012

Prime Minister

Tenure: 0y 11m

Mahmoud Jibril

20112011

Prime Minister

Tenure: 0y 7m
Show all 15 leaders

Mustafa Abdul Jalil

20112012

President

Tenure: 1y 5m

Muammar Gaddafi

19692011

President

Tenure: 41y 11m

👑 Idris I

19511969

King

Tenure: 17y 8m
📈 Power over timeThe Power Atlas →
Today
Minor#147 · 0.0%
3%5%8%10%2000
Power (headline share)Latent (material mass)Recognised (standing)
Libya · share of world power, 1951–2026

The powerline is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.

⚔️ Conflicts since 194510 interstate wars · click to expand
Libyan National Army,Libyan Air Force,(LNA–aligned),Libyan Navy,Wagner Group,(from 2018),Egypt Egypt,United Arab Emirates United Arab Emirates,RSF (from 2019),Ba'athist Syria,(2020),Hezbollah (allegedly)
Combat deaths:
Tunisian Army,Tunisian Police,Egypt
Combat deaths:
Combat deaths: 4,135–4,323
Combat deaths: 8,500+
Combat deaths: 500+
Combat deaths: 12,336–19,264
FROLINAT (from 1966)
Combat deaths:

Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”

👥 Population over time
Population 2023
7.3m
#106 in the world
Since 1800
32×
from 230k
Peak
2023
at its largest now
Share of world
0.09%
0.02% in 1800
1.9m3.8m5.7m7.5m18001850190019502000
Libya · people, 1800–2023 · dashed to 2026 is projected

Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.

👥 To 2100

The UN’s probabilistic projection for Libya: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.

Peak on the median
2086
10.0m on the UN median
2050
9.3m
95% band 6.9m to 12.2m
2100
9.8m
95% band 4.1m to 19.5m
2100 against 2025
1.31×
median falling from 2087
Deaths outnumber births
from 2082
on the UN medium path; migration decides the rest
5.1m10.2m15.4m20.5m1950197520002025205020752100

Tap or drag across the chart to read any year: the estimate to 2023, then the UN median, its bands and the scenarios.

estimateUN median80% and 95% bandshigh and low fertilityzero migration

What drives it

Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.

1950
56k born · 37k died · -6k net migration
TFR 7.01 · life expectancy 33.1 · median age 19.7
1960
77k born · 38k died · +23k net migration
TFR 7.51 · life expectancy 40.8 · median age 17.5
1970
97k born · 26k died · +745 net migration
TFR 8.05 · life expectancy 56.4 · median age 13.6
1980
152k born · 24k died · +67k net migration
TFR 7.54 · life expectancy 64.8 · median age 15.0
1990
120k born · 20k died · +946 net migration
TFR 4.78 · life expectancy 69.3 · median age 17.5
2000
115k born · 25k died · +6k net migration
TFR 2.91 · life expectancy 70.5 · median age 21.6
2010
153k born · 30k died · +10k net migration
TFR 2.60 · life expectancy 72.2 · median age 24.3
2020
132k born · 39k died · -694 net migration
TFR 2.51 · life expectancy 72.4 · median age 26.5
Show all 16 decades
2030
118k born · 41k died · +8k net migration
TFR 2.08 · life expectancy 75.9 · median age 29.3
2040
123k born · 54k died · +2k net migration
TFR 1.90 · life expectancy 77.6 · median age 32.8
2050
116k born · 72k died · +7k net migration
TFR 1.81 · life expectancy 79.3 · median age 36.3
2060
106k born · 88k died · +2k net migration
TFR 1.77 · life expectancy 81.0 · median age 39.3
2070
105k born · 97k died · +9k net migration
TFR 1.75 · life expectancy 82.5 · median age 41.2
2080
102k born · 100k died · +8k net migration
TFR 1.74 · life expectancy 84.0 · median age 42.8
2090
94k born · 108k died · -2k net migration
TFR 1.72 · life expectancy 85.3 · median age 44.7
2100
90k born · 117k died · +7k net migration
TFR 1.72 · life expectancy 86.6 · median age 46.2

Every country to 2100 →

Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.

🏆 National Teams

Libya on the international stage. Click a card for the full record.