Benghazi

Benghazi stands on the Mediterranean coast of Cyrenaica, near the site of the ancient Greek city of Euesperides, later known as Berenice. Its harbor served the western edge of the fertile uplands of Jebel Akhdar. The ancient city declined, but a settlement arose again in the later medieval period, and the name Marsa ibn Ghazi appeared on sixteenth-century maps.

The Ottomans established their authority over Benghazi in the sixteenth century. In the eighteenth century it was governed from Tripoli under the Qaramanli dynasty, whose power rested on a combination of Ottoman office and local alliances. Benghazi remained a port and a regional centre on the long coast between Tripoli and Egypt. In 1835 direct Ottoman rule returned after the end of Qaramanli government.