Tripoli (Tarābulus), a province of the Ottoman empire, and the easternmost of the Barbary States of North Africa, stretching along the whole extent of both the greater and lesser Syrtes (the gulfs of Cabes and Sidra), is bounded on the W. by Tunis, on the S. (very vaguely) by the Libyan Desert and Fezzan, on the E.—if we include the plateau of Barca (q.v.)—by Egypt, and on the N. by the Mediterranean Sea. The area is roughly estimated at 399,000 sq. m.; the number of the population, which is very mixed, can only be guessed, but is believed to be over 1,000,000—Libyan Berbers, Moors, and a few Arabs—with 3000 Europeans, chiefly Maltese, and 24,000 Jews. Tripoli is less mountainous than the rest of Barbary, for the Atlas range terminates here in a couple of chains running parallel to the coast and never exceeding 4000 feet in height. There are no rivers, and rain seldom falls during the long hot summers, but the heavy dew supports vegetation in favoured spots. The climate is extremely uncertain. The coast region (about 1100 miles in length) is very fertile about Tripoli and Mesurata, where all sorts of tropical fruits, grain, wine, cotton, madder, &c. are produced; but further east, along the shores of the Gulf of Sidra, reigns sandy desolation. The interior yields senna, dates, and galls, and the carob and lotus are indigenous. Sheep and cattle are reared in great numbers, and there is a hardy breed of small but excellent horses, besides strong and beautiful mules. The commerce of the country consists in exporting, principally to Malta and the Levant, the products of the country and of the interior of Africa (gold-dust, ivory, natron, and ostrich feathers), which are brought hither in caravans across the desert. The imports (which consist chiefly of European manufactures) have been declining gradually of late years, owing partly to the new direction which the trade of Central Africa is assuming, and partly to the abolition of the slave-trade, which has stopped the demand for many of the commodities that supported the traffic. Nevertheless Tripoli is still an important mart of the caravan trade with the interior.
Tripoli is subdivided into four livas or provinces—Tripoli, Benghazi (Berenice), Mesurata, and Gadames. The governor-general has the title, rank, and authority of a pasha of the Ottoman empire. He is appointed by the sultan, and in his turn appoints the beys or subordinate governors of the provinces; but many of the chief officers of state are nominated from Constantinople. The military force of the country consists of a body of Turkish soldiers, formerly about 3000, but increased in 1835 to 17,000 in number, whose business is to keep down insurrections, but who were formerly chiefly expert in creating them. The natives pay to the Turkish government, by way of tribute, a tenth of all the products of the soil; and there are, besides, the onerous special taxes on date-trees, &c. common to Mohammedan countries.
From the Phœnicians Tripoli passed into the hands of the rulers of Cyrenaica (Barca), from whom it was wrested by the Carthaginians. It next belonged to the Romans, who included it within the province of Africa, and gave it the name of Regio Syrtica. About the beginning of the 3d century A.D. it became known as the Regio Tripolitana (on account of its three principal cities, Cæa, Sabrata, and Leptis, which were leagued together), and was probably raised to the rank of a separate province by Septimius Severus, who was a native of Leptis. Like the rest of North Africa, it was conquered by the Arabs early in the 8th century (see BARBARY), and the feeble Christianity of the natives was supplanted by a vigorous and fanatical Mohammedanism. In 1510 it was taken by Don Pedro Navarro for Spain, and in 1523 it was assigned to the Knights of St John, who had lately been expelled by the Ottoman Turks from their stronghold in the Island of Rhodes. The Knights kept it with some trouble till 1551, when they were compelled to surrender to the Turkish admiral Sinan (see Lane-Poole, Barbary Corsairs), and Tripoli henceforward joined in the general piracy which made the Barbary States the terror of maritime Christendom. In 1714 the ruling pasha, Ahmad Karamâni, assumed the title of bey, and asserted a sort of semi-independence of the sultan, and this order of things continued under the rule of his descendants, accompanied by the most brazen piracy and blackmailing, until 1835, when the Porte took advantage of an intestinal struggle in Tripoli to reassert its authority. A new Turkish pasha, with viceregal powers, was appointed, and the state was made a vilâyet of the Ottoman empire, which it still remains. Several anti-Turkish rebellions have since taken place (notably in 1842 and 1844), but they have always been suppressed. The religious movement set on foot by the 'prophet' Senûsi in the middle of the 19th century is the most remarkable feature in the recent history of Tripoli. The first Senûsi died in 1860, and was succeeded by his son, who calls himself the Mahdi, and commands the devotion of a large following in northern Africa, much as did the better-known Mahdi in the Soudan (see SENÛSI). Of late Italy has sought to extend her interests in Tripoli.