Governorates of Libya

{{Short description|Historical administrative divisions of Libya}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}

The governorates of Libya (muhafazah) were a tenfold top-level administrative division of Libya from 1963 until 1983.

They came into being on 27 April 1963.{{Cite web|url=http://statoids.com/uly.html|title=Districts of Libya|publisher=Statoids}}St. John, Ronald Bruce and Hahn, Lorna (1991) "Governorates" Historical Dictionary of Libya (2nd edition) Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, p. 44, {{ISBN|0-8108-2451-5}} In 1970, after the 1 September 1969 Free Officers Movement coup, there was an administrative reorganization which gave local authorities more power to implement policies of the national government, and redesignated some of the names and boundaries of the ten governorates.Zeidan, Shawky S. (1987) "Chapter 4 – Government and Politics: Internal Politics: Subnational Government and Administration" [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/lytoc.html A Country Study: Libya] Federal Research Division, Library of Congress In February 1975, Libya issued a law that abolished the governorates and their service directorates,Zeidan, Shawky S. (1987) "Chapter 4 – Government and Politics: Internal Politics: Subnational Government and Administration: The Cultural Revolution and People's Committees" [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/lytoc.html A Country Study: Libya] Federal Research Division, Library of Congress however they continued to operate until they were fully replaced in 1983 by the baladiyat system districts.

Historically, the three provinces of Libya (Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest) were sometimes called governorates.{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}}