Ubari or Awbari (

Berber language The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...

: Ubari or Awbari; ar, أوباري, ‘Awbārī) is a Tuareg Berber–speaking oasis town and the capital of the

Wadi al Hayaa District Wadi al Hayaa ( ar, وادي الحياة ''Wādī al Ḥayāh'') is one of the districts of Libya. Its capital is the city of Ubari. As of 2006, it had a population of 72,587, area of and a population density of 2.28 persons per square kilomet ...

, in the

Fezzan Fezzan ( , ; ber, ⴼⵣⵣⴰⵏ, Fezzan; ar, فزان, Fizzān; la, Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ...

region of southwestern

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

. It is in the

Idehan Ubari The Ubari Desert, Idehan Ubari, Idehan Awbari (''Idehan'' means ''fine sand'' in Tamasheq) or Ubari Erg is an erg in the hyper-arid Fezzan region of southwestern Libya with a surface of approximately 58,000 km². The area of the Ubari desert has b ...

, a Libyan section of the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

. It was the capital of the former ''

baladiyah Baladiyah () is a type of Arabic administrative division that can be translated as "district", "sub-district" or "municipality". The plural is baladiyat (). Grammatically, it is the feminine of "rural, country-, folk-". The Arabic term amanah ( ...

'' (district) called Awbari, in the southwest of the country.

Geography

Ubari is in the Targa valley, lying between the Messak Sattafat plateau and Idhan Ubari

erg The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100 nJ). It originated in the Centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). It has the symbol ''erg''. The erg is not an SI unit. Its name is derived from (), a Greek word meaning 'work' o ...

sand dunes and lakes.

Native plant In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equ ...

s include wetland

grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns ...

at the natural

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season) Spring, also known as springtime, is one of the four temperate seasons, succeeding winter and preceding summer. There are various technical definitions of spring, but local usage of ...

fed lakes' shorelines, and the native Saharan Date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'') The Ubari oasis settlement is the second center for the Kel Ajjer

Tuareg people The Tuareg people (; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: ''Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn'') are a large Berber ethnic group that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Alg ...

, after

Ghat Ghat, a term used in the Indian subcontinent, depending on the context could refer either to a range of stepped hills with valleys (ghati in Hindi), such as the Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats; or the series of steps leading down to a body of ...

. Neighbouring villages include

Germa Germa ( ar, جرمة), known in ancient times as Garama, is an archaeological site in Libya. It was the capital of the Garamantian Kingdom. The Garamantes were a Berber people living in the Fezzan in the northeastern Sahara Desert. Garamantian p ...

, and Garran. Ubari is located in one of the sunniest and driest areas in the world. It has a

hot desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''BWh'') with short, very warm winters but long, extremely hot summers. Average annual rainfall is one of the lowest found on the planet with only 8 mm (0.31 in) and many decades may easily pass without seeing any rainfall at all. Ubari has permanent, unlimited sunshine and clear skies all year round and in all seasons. Clouds are extremely rare over this bone-dry land. Average high temperatures exceed 40 °C (104 °F) from June to September.

NC186 NC186 is an oil field located in the southwest of Ubari, Libya. It is operated by Repsol. See also * List of oil fields This list of oil fields includes some major oil fields of the past and present. The list is incomplete; there are more ...

is an oil field in southwest Ubari, operated by

Repsol Repsol S.A.
El Nuevo Herald, 2012-05-31Originally an init ...

Libyan civil wars

During the 2011 Libyan civil war the town was captured by the forces of the

National Transitional Council The National Transitional Council of Libya ( ar, المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي '), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the ''de facto'' government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War ...

on 22 September 2011. On 19 November 2011,

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi ( ar, سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife Safia Farkash. He was a p ...

and a few associates were captured and detained about 50 kilometers west of Ubari as they were trying to flee to neighbouring

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languages2nd civil war, the city has been claimed by independent Tuareg and Toubou tribes.

References

External links

{{Authority control Populated places in Wadi al Hayaa District Oases of Libya Tuareg Baladiyat of Libya vi:Ubari