Libya, a mostly desert and oil-rich country on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea with an ancient history, has more recently been renowned for the 42-year rule of the mercurial Col Muammar Gaddafi.
In 2011, the colonel's autocratic government appears to have been brought to an end by a six-month uprising and ensuing civil war.
A former Roman colony, Libya saw invasions by Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and more recently Italians before gaining independence in 1951.
Oil was discovered in 1959 and made the state - then a kingdom ruled by the head of the Senussi sufi order - wealthy.
Col Gaddafi came to power by overthrowing King Idris in a coup in 1969, ten years after independence, and Libya embarked on a radically new chapter in its history.
After initially seeking to emulate the Arab nationalism and socialism of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Col Gaddafi's rule became increasingly eccentric.
Ideas put forward in his Green Book aimed to set forth an alternative to both communism and capitalism. Islam was adhered to, but with a unique slant.
Col Gaddafi called the new system a jamahiriya, loosely translated as a "state of the masses". In theory, power was held by people's committees in system of direct democracy, without political parties.
In practice, Col Gaddafi's power was absolute, exercised through a hierarchy of "revolutionary committees", formed of loyal regime supporters.
After the 1988 bombing of a PanAm plane above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which the US blamed on Libya, the Gaddafi regime was shunned by much of the international community.
But it underwent a dramatic rehabilitation by taking formal responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and paying compensation to the victims.
Two Libyans suspected of organising the incident were handed over in 1999 for trial in The Hague under Scottish law. In 2001 one of the suspects was found guilty of killing 270 people in the bombing.
The UN lifted sanctions, and Libya's subsequent renunciation of weapons of mass destruction further improved relations with the West.
In 2009, convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, diagnosed with terminal cancer, was freed from prison on compassionate grounds and returned home in August.
In 2011, the world once again turned against the Libyan government over its use of violence against the popular uprising against the colonel, inspired by the anti-authoritarian protests sweeping through the Arab world.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution authorising Nato air strikes to protect civilians. After taking over the country's east and pockets in the west, the rebels made slow progress, until in August 2011, they stormed into Tripoli, effectively bringing Col Gaddafi's dictatorship to an end.
Libya possesses considerable reserves of oil and gas, but the sector remains relatively undeveloped.
Leadership: National Transitional Council (NTC).jpg)
Chairman: Mustafa Abdul Jalil
Head of Executive Board: Mahmoud Jibril
Most of Libya is currently under the effective rule of the National Transitional Council as a result of the popular uprising that ended Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year-long rule in 2011.
Aided by a Nato bombing campaign and reported Western intelligence assistance, the anti-Gaddafi forces - previously restricted to eastern Libya and some western strongholds - wore down the pro-Gaddafi forces' resistance and ejected them from the capital Tripoli in August 2011.
However, they were unable to apprehend the colonel and his influential sons, leaving the country in continued political limbo.
Many states, including neighbours Egypt and Tunisia, Russia, the United States and most EU countries, have recognised the NTC as the legitimate authority in Libya.
The chairman of the NTC is Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who served as Col Gaddafi's justice minister before defecting to the opposition at the beginning of the uprising - the first senior official to do so. His pre-eminence in the NTC is contested by some, who him as tarnished by his association with the Gaddafi government.
The NTC has an executive board, headed by Mahmoud Jibril, who effectively fulfils the role of prime minister. A former academic and training consultant with degrees from Cairo and Pittsburgh universities, Mr Jibril from 2007-11 led Col Gaddafi's National Economic Development Board, where he spearheaded policies of economic liberalisation and privatisation.
Ousted leader: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.jpg)
Until his ouster in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi had been the Arab world's longest-serving leader. A shrewd operator, he survived several attempts on his life and reinvented Libya's system of government.
Coup
Inspired by the Egyptian nationalist leader Gamal Abdul Nasser, the colonel came to power in a bloodless coup in 1969 against the ailing King Idris.
Col Gaddafi presented himself as an Arab nationalist, but his attempts to forge unity with other Arab states met with little success. In the 1990s he turned to Africa and proposed a "United States of Africa". The concept later formed the basis of the African Union.
From 1970s onwards, Col Gaddafi angered the West with his support for a broad range of armed groups, including the Irish Republican Army and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Libya's alleged involvement in attacks in Europe in the 1980s triggered US military strikes in 1986. Dozens of people were killed, including the Libyan leader's adopted daughter.
Rapprochment with West
However, Colonel Gaddafi returned to the international fold after Libya settled civil claims of victims of the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing and agreed to stop developing weapons of mass destruction.
Western politicians, including the British, Italian, French and German leaders, thereupon visited Tripoli in search of lucrative economic deals.
Muammar Gaddafi was born in the desert near Sirte in 1942. He married twice and has eight children, several of whom have roles in the security forces.
Col Gaddafi's eldest son, Seif al-Islam, was initially seen abroad as a moderating and reformist influence, but since the 2011 uprising, has adopted the image of a hard-line supporter of his father.
A chronology of key events:
7th century BC - Phoenicians settle in Tripolitania in western Libya.
6th century BC - Carthage conquers Tripolitania.
4th century BC - Greeks colonise Cyrenaica in the east of the country, which they call Libya..jpg)
74 BC - Romans conquer Libya.
643 - Arabs under Amr Ibn al-As conquer Libya and spread Islam.
16th century - Libya becomes part of the Ottoman Empire, which joins the three provinces of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan into one regency in Tripoli.
1911-12 - Italy conquers Libya.
1920s - Libyan resistance to Italian rule begins under the leadership of the Sanusi dynasty and Umar al-Mukhtar.
1942 - Allies oust Italians from Libya, which is then divided between the French, who administer Fezzan, and the British, who control Cyrenaica and Tripolitania.
1951 - Libya becomes independent under King Idris al-Sanusi.
1956 - Libya grants two American oil companies a concession of some 14 million acres.
1961 - King Idris opens a 104-mile pipeline, which links important oil fields in the interior to the Mediterranean Sea and makes it possible to export Libyan oil for the first time.
The Gaddafi era
1969 - King Idris deposed in military coup led by Col Muammar Gaddafi, who pursues a pan-Arab agenda by attempting to form mergers with several Arab countries, and introduces state socialism by nationalising most economic activity, including the oil industry.
1970 - Libya orders the closure of a British airbase in Tobruk and the giant US Wheelus air force base in Tripoli; property belonging to Italian settlers nationalised..jpg)
1971 - National referendum approves proposed Federation of Arab Republics (FAR) comprising Libya, Egypt and Syria. However, the FAR never takes off.
1972 - Libya and Egypt agree on a merger, but this fails to materialise.
1973 - Col Gaddafi declares a "cultural revolution", which includes the formation of "people's committees" in schools, hospitals, universities, workplaces and administrative districts; Libyan forces occupy Aozou Strip in northern Chad.
1974 - Libya and Tunisia agree on a union state - the "Islamic Arab Republic" - but this proves to be stillborn.
1977 - Col Gaddafi declares a "people's revolution", changing the country's official name from the Libyan Arab Republic to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah and setting up "revolutionary committees" - heralding the start of institutionalised chaos, economic decline and general arbitrariness.
1980 - Libya and Syria agree on a merger, but this too fails to materialise; Libyan troops start intervening on a large scale in civil war in northern Chad.
Confrontation with the US
1981 - US shoots down two Libyan aircraft which challenged its warplanes over the Gulf of Sirte, claimed by Libya as its territorial water.
1984 - UK breaks off diplomatic relations with Libya after a British policewoman is shot dead outside the Libyan People's Bureau, or embassy, in London, while anti-Gaddafi protests were taking place.
1986 - US bombs Libyan military facilities, residential areas of Tripoli and Benghazi, killing 101 people, and Gaddafi's house, killing his adopted daughter. USsays raids were in response to alleged Libyan involvement in bombing of Berlin disco frequented by US military personnel.
1988 - Gaddafi orders the release of some political prisoners and embarks on limited economic liberalisation.
1989 - Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia form the Arab Maghreb Union.
Lockerbie plane bombing
1992 - UN imposes sanctions on Libya in an effort to force it to hand over for trial two of its citizens suspected of involvement in the blowing up of a PanAm airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in December 1988.
1994 - Libya returns the Aozou Strip to Chad.
1995 - Gaddafi expels some 30,000 Palestinians in protest at the Oslo accords between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel.
1999 - Lockerbie suspects handed over for trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law; UN sanctions suspended; diplomatic relations with UK restored.
2000 September - Dozens of African immigrants are killed by Libyan mobs in the west of Libya who were said to be angry at the large number of African labourers coming into the country.
Lockerbie sentence
2001 31 January - Special Scottish court in the Netherlands finds one of the two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment. Megrahi's co-accused, Al-Amin Khalifa Fahimah, is found not guilty and freed.
2001 May - Libyan troops help to quell a coup attempt against President Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic.
2002 January - Libya and the US say they have held talks to mend relations after years of hostility over what the Americans termed Libya's sponsorship of terrorism.
2002 14 March - The Libyan man found guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, loses his appeal against the conviction and begins a life sentence of at least 20 years.
Compensation
2003 January - Libya is elected chairman of the UN Human Rights Commission despite opposition from the US and human rights groups.
2003 August - Libya signs a deal worth $2.7bn to compensate families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. Libya takes responsibility for the bombing in a letter to the UN Security Council.
2003 September - UN Security Council votes to lift sanctions.
2003 December - Libya says will abandon programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction.
2004 January - Libya agrees to compensate families of victims of 1989 bombing of French passenger aircraft over Sahara.
2004 March - British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits, the first such visit since 1943.
Nurses sentenced
2004 May - Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor are sentenced to death having been accused of deliberately infecting some 400 children with HIV. Their case goes to appeal.
2004 August - Libya agrees to pay $35m to compensate victims of the bombing of a Berlin nightclub in 1986.
2005 January - Libya's first auction of oil and gas exploration licences heralds the return of US energy companies for the first time in more than 20 years.
2005 December - Supreme Court overturns death penalties imposed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV. A retrial is ordered.
2006 February - At least 10 people are killed in clashes with police in Benghazi, part of a wave of international protests by Muslims who are angered by a Danish newspaper's cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
2006 May - The US says it is restoring full diplomatic ties with Libya.
2006 September - Human Rights Watch accuses Libya of abusing the human rights of African migrants trying to enter the EU by forcibly repatriating them. Some of the migrants face possible persecution or torture at home, according to the report.
Colonel Gaddafi marks the 37th anniversary of his military coup with a speech urging supporters to kill enemies trying to reverse the gains of his revolution.
2006 December - At the end of a retrial, a court finds five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor guilty of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV. All six are sentenced to death.
2007 January - Prime minister announces plan to make redundant 400,000 government workers - more than a third of the total workforce - to stimulate the private sector and ease public spending.
Nurses freed
2007 July - The death sentences of the six foreign medical workers in the HIV case are commuted to life in prison. Shortly after they are freed under a deal with the European Union.
2008 January - Libya takes over one-month rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in a step back to respectability after decades as a pariah of the West..jpg)
2008 August - Libya and US sign agreement committing each side to compensate all victims of bombing attacks on the other's citizens.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi apologises to Libya for damage inflicted by Italy during the colonial era and signs a five billion dollar investment deal by way of compensation.
2008 September - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice makes historic visit - the highest-level US visit to Libya since 1953. Ms Rice says relations between the US and Libya have entered a "new phase".
2008 November - US Lockerbie victims' group says Libya has paid them full compensation. Possibility of restoration of diplomatic relations with United States.
2009 February - Gaddafi elected chairman of the African Union by leaders meeting in Ethiopia. Sets out ambition of "United States of Africa" even embracing the Caribbean.
2009 June - Gaddafi pays first state visit to Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler and now its main trading partner.
Al-Megrahi released
2009 August - Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is freed from gaol in Scotland on compassionate grounds and returned to Libya. His release and return to a hero's welcome causes a storm of controversy.
2009 September - Libya holds celebrations to mark 40 years since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi seized power.
2009 December - Diplomatic row with Switzerland and European Union after Gaddafi's son is held in Switzerland on charges of mistreating domestic workers.
2010 January - Russia agrees to sell Libya weapons in a deal worth $1.8bn. The deal is thought to include fighter jets, tanks and air defence systems.
2010 May - Afriqiyah Airways plane crashes on approach to Tripoli, killing 103 on board. A Dutch boy is the sole survivor.
2010 June - UN refugee agency UNHCR expelled.
2010 July - US senators push for inquiry into claims that oil giant BP lobbied for Lockerbie bomber's release.
BP confirms it is about to begin drilling off Libyan coast.
2010 October - European Union and Libya sign agreement designed to slow illegal migration.
2010 November - Group of journalists arrested in apparent power struggle within ruling elite. Gaddafi later orders them to be freed.
2010 December - US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks indicate that Gaddafi threatened to cut trade with Britain if Lockerbie bomber died in prison.
Anti-Gaddafi uprising
2011 February - Arrest of human rights campaigner sparks violent protests in eastern city of Benghazi that rapidly spread to other cities. Authorities use aircraft to attack protestors. Many Libyan diplomats resign in protest. Gaddafi insists that he will not quit, and remains in control of the capital, Tripoli..jpg)
2011 March - UN Security Council authorises a no-fly zone over Libya and air strikes to protect civilians, over which NATO assumes command. London conference of world powers, European Union and Arab League calls on Col Gaddafi to quit.
Backed by extensive NATO air raids, Libyan rebels initially capture territory but are then forced back by better-armed pro-Gaddafi forces. Rebels ask West for arms.
Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa flies to Britain in protest at attacks on the rebels. Other senior figures defect in subsequent weeks.
2011 May - International Criminal Court seeks arrest of Gaddafi for crimes against humanity following "widespread and systematic attacks" on civilians.
2011 July - The international Contact Group on Libya formally recognises the main opposition group, the Transitional National Council (TNC), as the legitimate government of Libya.
2011 August - Rebels swarm into Col Gaddafi's fortress compound in Tripoli, six months after the uprising began. With only a few remaining strongholds under his control, Col Gaddafi goes into hiding. His wife and three of his children flee to neighbouring
Algeria.
2011 20 October - Col Gaddafi is killed.
