Derna (; ') is a

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

city in eastern

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

. With a population of around 90,000, Derna was once the seat of one of the wealthiest provinces among the Barbary States. The city is now the administrative capital of Derna District, which covers a much smaller area than the old province. Among Libyan cities, Derna has a unique location and physical environment, as it lies between the Jebel Akhdar (also known as Green Mountain), the Mediterranean Sea, and the desert and is the fourth most important port in

Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika (, , after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between the 16th and 25th meridians east, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, als ...

's northern coast after

Benghazi Benghazi () () is the List of cities in Libya, second-most-populous city in Libya as well as the largest city in Cyrenaica, with an estimated population of 859,000 in 2023. Located on the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, Ben ...

, Bayda and

Tobruk Tobruk ( ; ; ) is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt. It is the capital of the Butnan District (formerly Tobruk District) and has a population of 120,000 (2011 est.)."Tobruk" (history), ''Encyclop� ...

. The city is also home to people of many different backgrounds. The city was the location of the famous Battle of Derna (1805), the first victory achieved by the United States Military on foreign soil. Occurring during the

First Barbary War The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War and the Barbary Coast War, was a conflict during the 1801–1815 Barbary Wars, in which the United States fought against Ottoman Tripolitania. Tripolitania had declared war ...

, the battle was fought between a force of roughly 500 US Marines and Mediterranean mercenaries and 4,000 or 5,000 Barbary troops. Parts of the city were taken over by

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

(IS) militants in October 2014. In June 2015, the Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna defeated IS and took control of the town, before being expelled themselves by the Libyan National Army in the Battle of Derna (2018–2019). In September 2023, about a quarter of the city was wiped out by a catastrophic flood caused by the collapse of two dams over the Wadi Derna river against the backdrop of Storm Daniel, resulting in the death of thousands of its residents, although the death toll varies by source. Thousands more were either injured and some 10,000 to 20,000 others were reported missing. As of 2024, reconstruction efforts were underway to rebuild roads, bridges and key infrastructure.

Name

''Darnis'' and ''Darne'' were the ancient Greek names for the city.

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(IV, 4, 2; 5; 6) The form ''Dardanis'' is sometimes found, although this is erroneous. Under Rome the city was referred to as ''Darnis'' and ''Derna''. Under the Arabs, it was known as ''Derneh'' (''Derne'', ''Dernah'') or ''Terneh'' (''Ternah'').

History

Classic era and Middle Ages

In the

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

the ancient city of Darnis was part of the Libyan Pentapolis colonized by the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

. Under

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, it became a civil and later the religious metropolis of the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of Libya Secunda, or Libya Inferior, that is, the Marmarica region. The names of some of its

metropolitan bishop In Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan (alternative obsolete form: metropolite), is held by the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a Metropolis (reli ...

s are found in extant documents. Piso was one of the Eastern bishops who withdrew from the Council of Sardica and set up their own council at Philippopolis in 347. Early 5th-century Dioscorus is known because of a dispute he had with the bishop of Erythrum. Daniel took part in the Council of Ephesus in 431. In addition, John Moschus speaks of a bishop Thedodorus of Darnis as having had a vision of Saint Leo the Great in the mid-5th century. No longer a residential bishopric, Darnis is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

. The city was resettled by the refugees from Islamic Spain ( Expulsion of the Moriscos) in 1493 on the site of the ancient settlement.

Modern era

Ottoman times

Under Ottoman rule, Derna was initially under the governor at Tripoli, but shortly after 1711, it fell under the Karamanli sultanate until 1835, when it became a dependency of the autonomous sanjak of

, essentially

, which was governed directly from Constantinople. This in turn, in 1875, became the

vilayet A vilayet (, "province"), also known by #Names, various other names, was a first-order administrative division of the later Ottoman Empire. It was introduced in the Vilayet Law of 21 January 1867, part of the Tanzimat reform movement initiated b ...

. In the 1850s, it had an estimated 4,500 inhabitants, who lived by agriculture, fishing and the coastal trade. The oldest mosque in Derna is ''Al-masjeed al-ateeq'', or the "Old Mosque", restored by wali Mahmoud Karamanli in 1772, vaulted with 42 small cupolas. This kind of vault was in use due to lack of some materials, like timber or stone in the region of Cyrenaica. There is another mosque, named ''Masjeed az-zawiyah'', built in 1846, more strictly curved in the side of a hill. The French admiral Gantheaume landed at Derna in June 1800 in an attempt to reinforce Napoleon in Egypt by bringing troops overland, but was rebuffed by the local garrison. Derna was the location of the 1805 Battle of Derne, in which forces under U.S. Lieutenant and former Consul to Tripoli William Eaton—who had marched across the

Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the northeastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert (Egypt), Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval m ...

from

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

—captured the city as part of the

. Ottoman rule in Derna came to an end on 16 October 1911, with the city's capture by Italian troops during the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish (, "Tripolitanian War", , "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captur ...

World War II

The Italian rule over Derna lasted 29 years, 3 months, and 14 days until it was captured on 30 January 1941 by Australian Troops during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

North African Campaign The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert Wa ...

. On 6 April 1941, German forces retook the city from the British, and on 15 November 1942, British forces recaptured it. The airbase that became RAF_Derna and the nearby Martuba Airbase were strategic hubs for air support to the land campaigns in the Western Desert and attacks on shipping in the Mediterranean.

Libyan Republic and civil war

In 2007, American troops in Iraq uncovered a list of foreign fighters for the Iraqi insurgency. Of the 112 Libyans on the list, 52 had come from Derna. Derna has the reputation of being the most fundamentalist Muslim city in Libya. Following mass protests on 18 February 2011, the city came under the control of the

National Transitional Council The National Transitional Council (NTC) was a transitional government established in the 2011 Libyan civil war. After rebel forces overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya of Muammar Gaddafi in August 2011, the NTC governed Libya for a further ...

, breaking from the Libyan government. The city was never retaken before Gaddafi's ouster from Tripoli and the establishment of a new government. In October 2014, local militants affiliated with the Islamic Youth Shura Council publicly pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the

. In November 2014, al-Baghdadi released an audio-recording accepting the pledge of allegiance and announced the expansion of his group. On June 28, 2018, forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar claimed to have taken full control of the city, following a two-year siege of the city that culminated in a month-long

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force co ...

Storm Daniel

On 10 September 2023, Storm Daniel made landfall in Libya near

. While moving east-southeast, the storm caused torrential rainfall and extreme flooding in Derna, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency for the area, after collapses in the early morning of the next day of the Derna dam and the Mansour dam, which caused floodwaters to inundate the areas of the city around the Wadi Derna. At least 4,352 people were confirmed dead, with more than 11,300 casualties were initially estimated. Meanwhile, a government minister said that 25% of Derna had "disappeared", with large parts of the city washed out to sea.

Geography

Derna is located at the eastern end of the Jebel Akhdar, one of the very few forested areas in Libya; due to its arid climate, forest makes up a mere 0.1% of Libya's land area. However, Derna is near the fertile upland area of eastern Libya, which is the wettest region in the country, receiving some of

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

annually. The city is built along the Wadi Derna, an ephemeral river that is dry much of the year. Historically, the city has been repeatedly damaged by floods. The Abu Mansur and Derna dams upstream of the city were meant to control soil erosion and prevent flooding. Both dams were destroyed by high flow following Mediterranean Storm Daniel in September 2023. The dambreaks appear to have contributed significantly to flood damage and fatalities in Derna. Derna is linked with Shahhat by two roads; the inner one running through Al Qubah is part of the Libyan Coastal Highway and the coastal one running through Susa and Ras al Helal.

Climate

Derna features a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BSh'') with strong

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

influences: essentially all the modest annual rains fall between October and March. The annual rainfall is around . Its maritime location allows it to have an extreme seasonal lag that is incredibly uncommon for a dry climate. However, the influence of the Sahara allows for the extreme record highs to occur months before the average warmest months. In winter, the city's average temperature ranges between . Summers are quite long and effectively rainless with afternoon temperatures averaging well above between June and October.

Politics

The entire city council of Derna were dismissed after the flooding.

Architecture

Derna has three main squares. The most popular square is the ''Maydan Assahabah.'' This square was always used for mass demonstrations against Libyan leader

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, his assassination by Libyan Anti-Gaddafi ...

. The city is also a tourist hub due to its old city (the Medina), which is home to Islamic architecture.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Populated places in Derna District Cyrenaica Barbary Wars Darnis Baladiyat of Libya