Kufra, Kufrah or Kofra ( ), also spelled Cufra in Italian language, is the largest district of Libya and the second largest such district in Africa. It is slightly smaller than the country of Turkmenistan. Its capital is Al Jawf, one of the oases in Kufra basin.
History
The name
Kufra (comes from Kufuh and Epher) itself is a derivation from
kafir, the Arabic term for disbeliever.
[Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs, Reise von Tripolis nach der Oase Kufra (1881).[1]] Kufra did not fall under the dominion of either the Arabs or the Ottomans and was owned by the
Arab Bedouin tribe of the
Zuwayya only in the mid-19th century, and eventually by the Italians by the 1930s. In 1931, during the campaign of Cyrenaica, General
Rodolfo Graziani easily conquered Kufra, considered a strategic region, leading about 3,000 infantry and artillery personnel, supported by about twenty bombers.
Geography
Kufra's location in Libya's southeast places it on the country's border with
Egypt,
Sudan (unlike any other Libyan district), and
Chad. It borders the following regions of these countries, namely, New Valley Governorate, Egypt in the east, Shamaliyah State, Sudan in the southeast,
North Darfur in the far southeast, and Bourkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region, Chad in the south. Domestically, it borders the following districts, namely,
Murzuq District in the west,
Jufra District in the northwest and Al Wahat in the north. Kufra is a part of Cyrenacian geographical subdivision, the largest region in Libya and which is mostly semi-arid in nature. The region receives average annual rainfall of . There are no perennial rivers in the region, although it is abundant with groundwater aquifers.
The terrain of all three regions of the county is mostly a flat undulating plain and occasional plateau, with an average elevation of around . Around 91 per cent of the land is covered by desert, with only 8.8 per cent agricultural land (with only 1% arable lands) and 0.1 per cent of forests. It is desert climate in all other parts of the region. Dust storms lasting four to eight days are fairly common during the spring.
Per 2006 census, there were totally 13,313 economically active people in the district. There were 6,295 government employees, 2,178 employers, 6,454 first level workers, and 1 second level worker. There were 85 workers in state administration, 85 in agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry, 2,445 in agriculture and hunting, 2,029 in education, 1,558 in private enterprises, 584 in health and social work, 85 in production, 2,214 in technical work, and 354 service workers. The total enrollment in schools was 17,364 and the number of people above secondary stage and less than graduation was 875.
Local administration
During 2007, the northern part of Kufra District was moved to the newly created Al Wahat District. Besides the main Oasis group of the Kufra basin, four more oases belong to the region, which lie northwest of Kufra basin are Rebiana, Buzema, Wadi Zighen and Tazirbu. The oasis-valleys of Jabal Arkanu and Jebel Uweinat lie southeast of the basin.[Bertarelli 1929, p. 515.] Libya became independent in 1951 from the colonial empire and generally known for its oil rich resources.
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