Libyan Coastal Highway

Libyan Coastal Highway
Libyan Coastal Highway
Location
Country	Libya
Highway system
	Transport in Libya;

The Libyan Coastal Highway (Arabic: الطريق الساحلي الليبي), formerly the Litoranea Balbo, is a highway that is the only major road that runs along the entire east-west length of the Libyan Mediterranean coastline. It is a section in the Cairo–Dakar Highway #1 in the Trans-African Highway system of the African Union, Arab Maghreb Union and others.

Built under the rule of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in colonial Italian Libya in the 1930s, it was named Via Balbia' (or Litoranea Balbo) in honour of governor-general Italo Balbo, but renamed to "Libyan Coastal Highway" after independence and enlarged.

In the First Libyan Civil War of 2011 the highway was a strategic and symbolic element, as the main route through the contested coastal region between Sirte and Benghazi.

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