. . "There are twenty-two districts of Libya, known by the term shabiyah (Arabic singular \u0634\u0639\u0628\u064A\u0629 \u0161a\u02BFbiyya, plural \u0161a\u02BFbiyy\u0101t). In the 1990s these replaced the older baladiyat system.Historically the area of Libya was considered three provinces (or states), Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan in the southwest. It was the conquest by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War that united them in a single political unit."@en .