Litoranea Balbo

The Litoranea Balbo, or "Via Balbia" as was called after 1940, was a highway running the entire length of the coast in the colony of Italian Libya. It is now the Libyan Coastal Highway.

The Litoranea was built in 1937. It was named "Via Litoranea libica" but after the death in 1940 of Italo Balbo, the governor of Italian Libya, who had promoted its creation, it was renamed "Via Balbia". It was used to improve the economy and viability of the Italian colony of Libya. At the end it was useful for the Axis attacks on Egypt in 1940. The road was built from the Tunisian border to the Egyptian border and was extended in 1940 by the Via della Vittoria inside western Egypt. According to historian Baldinetti the construction was done to give work to more than 10,000 Libyan Arabs.

The 1,800-kilometre (1,100 mi) road was built 7 metres (7.7 yd) wide and asphalted; petrol stations with colonial houses were built every 40 kilometres (25 mi) and near cities were wider parts for emergency stops.

In the centre of the Litoranea Balbo (at the limit between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania) there was the huge Arch of Fileni, ordered by Mussolini as a symbol of his colonial ambitions, designed by the Italian architect Florestano Di Fausto. There was an inscription at the top of the arch which read,

Alme Sol, possis nihil urbe Roma visere maius (Oh kind Sun, may you never look upon a city greater than Rome)

The "Arch of Fileni" was demolished in 1973 by the new revolutionary regime of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

A railway was planned for the central section of the Litoranea Balbo parallel to the road, to connect Tripoli and Benghazi but little had been built before the outbreak of the Second World War stopped construction. After the war the "Litoranea Balbo" was partially destroyed but in the 1960s it was improved and enlarged to four lanes in many sections with a new name,"Libyan Coastal Highway".

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Wikipedia