Tripoli Travel Guide — Best Time, Things to Do & Where to Stay

Why Tripoli

Tripoli, historically referred to as Tripoli-of-the-West, serves as the capital and largest city of Libya. Situated in the northwestern part of the nation where the desert meets the Mediterranean Sea, the city rests on a rocky point of land projecting outward to form a natural bay. It stands as Libya's principal commercial and manufacturing center, houses the Port of Tripoli, and contains the University of Tripoli. Poetically known as the Mermaid of the Mediterranean due to its turquoise coastal waters and whitewashed buildings, the name also designates the surrounding administrative district.

The roots of the city extend back to the seventh century BC when Phoenicians established a settlement named Oyat on a defensible peninsula with a favorable natural harbor. The colony subsequently passed to Greek rulers from Cyrenaica, who named it Oea, and later to the Carthaginians. By the late second century BC, Roman authority was established, eventually incorporating Oea alongside Sabratha and Leptis Magna into a broader district designated as the region of three cities, or Tripolitania. Because Tripoli has been occupied continuously through the centuries, much of its ancient architecture was quarried or built over, leaving the second-century AD Arch of Marcus Aurelius as the primary visible Roman monument.

Following a seventh-century conquest by forces of the Rashidun Caliphate, Tripoli was governed by several successive Islamic dynasties. Spanish forces seized the settlement in 1510, later entrusting it to the Knights of St. John, who fortified the city walls and constructed early defensive elements of the landmark Red Castle, or Assaraya al-Hamra. In 1551, Ottoman forces took control under commander Turgut Reis, who expanded and built up the city. His tomb remains preserved inside the Sidi Darghut Mosque near the Bab Al-Bahr gate. The local Karamanli dynasty subsequently governed with semi-independence between 1711 and 1835, a period marked by maritime conflict before direct Ottoman administration was re-established.

Italy occupied Tripoli in the early twentieth century, initiating modern infrastructure projects including a modern hospital, a municipal sewage system, and a section of the Litoranea Balbia coastal highway. During this era, the city introduced the Tripoli International Fair in 1927—the oldest trade fair in Africa—and established the Mellaha Air Base, which operates today as Mitiga International Airport. British Allied forces took control of the city in 1943. Today, visitors can observe remnants of Tripoli's layered past through surviving historic sites such as the Red Castle fortress, the ancient Roman arch, and historic places of worship along its coastline.