Benghazi

Benghazi or Bengasi , city (1985 est. pop. 490,500), capital of Benghazi municipality, NE Libya, the main city of Cyrenaica and a port on the Mediterranean Sea. It is primarily an administrative and commercial center. Manufactures include processed food, beverages, textiles, and cement. On the site of Benghazi the Greeks founded (7th cent. BC) the colony of Hesperides, which was later (3d cent. BC) renamed Berenice after the wife of Ptolemy III of Egypt. Under the Romans, who conquered it in the mid-1st cent. BC, the city had a large Jewish colony. In the 5th cent. AD, the Vandals severely damaged the city, and in the 7th cent. it was captured by the Arabs. The Ottoman Turks took the city in the mid-16th cent., and they held it until it was captured by Italy in 1911. The Italians modernized the city and enlarged its port. At the start of World War II, Benghazi had about 22,000 Italian inhabitants, but they were evacuated before the city fell to the British in late 1942. From 1951 to 1972, Benghazi was the cocapital (with Tripoli) of Libya. The city is the site of Garyounes Univ., founded in 1955.

Benghazi (Banghazi) City on the ne shore of the Gulf of Sidra, Libya. Founded by the Greeks in the 6th century bc, Benghazi was captured by the Italians in 1911. Libya's second largest city, Benghazi is a commercial and industrial centre for Cyrenaica province. Industries: salt processing, shipping, oil refining. Pop. (1995) 544,084.

Benghazi (Banghāzī), Libya Hesperides/Euesperides, Berenice Founded by the Greeks in the 7th century bc as Hesperides ‘Daughters of the Sunset’, the three daughters of Hesperus, the evening star in Greek mythology. To this name, after the occupation of Cyrenaica, Ptolemy III, Egyptian Pharaoh (c.246–221 bc), added Berenice in the 4th century bc in honour of his wife. By marrying Ptolemy III, Berenice II (c.269–221 bc), daughter of the King of Cyrene, reunited her country with Egypt. Her name, Berenikhe in Greek, was the name of the queens of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt and was derived from pherenike ‘bringer of victory’. Benghazi may come from banī ğāzī ‘Sons of the Conqueror’ from banī, the plural of ibn ‘son’; ğāzī usually means ‘Defenders of Islam’ or ‘Warriors for the Faith’. Alternatively, it may be named after Sidi Ghazi, a locally buried saint.