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Fezzan (UKfɛˈzɑːn , USfɛˈzæn,_fəˈzæn ; Fezzan; Fizzān; Phazania) is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara Desert. The term originally applied to the land beyond the coastal strip of Africa proconsularis, including the Nafusa and extending west of modern Libya over Ouargla and Illizi. As these Berber areas came to be associated with the regions of Tripoli, Cirta or Algiers, the name was increasingly applied to the arid areas south of Tripolitania. After the 1934 formation of Libya, the Fezzan province was designated as one of the three primary provinces of the country, alongside Tripolitania province to the north and Cyrenaica province to the northeast. In Berber languages, Fezzan (or ifezzan) means "rough rocks". Fezzan could also be a derivation from the region's Latin and Greek name Phasania or Phazania, which may mean "the country of the pheasants". Fezzan is crossed in the north by the ash-Shati Valley (Wadi Al Shatii) and in the west by the Wadi Irawan. These two areas, along with portions of the Tibesti Mountains crossing the Chadian border and a sprinkling of remote oases and border posts, are the only parts of the Fezzan able to support settled populations. The large dune seas known as ergs of the Idehan Ubari and the Idehan Murzuq cover much of the remaining land of Fezzan. From the 5th century BCE to the 5th century CE, Fezzan was home to the Garamantes, who operated the Trans-Saharan trade routes successively between Carthage and the Roman Empire in North Africa and Sahelian states of west and central Africa. The Roman generals Septimus Flaccus in 19 BCE and Suetonius Paulinus in 50 CE led small-scale military expeditions into the northern reaches of the Sahara, and the Roman explorer Julius Maternus traveled there in early 1st century CE. Paulinus reached Fezzan and went further south.

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Garamantes

The Garamantes (Γαράμαντες; Garamantes) were an ancient civilisation based primarily in the southern region of Libya. They most likely descended from Toubou or Berber tribes and pastoralists from the Sahara. The Garamantes settled in the Fezzan region by at least 1000 BC,and by the late 7th century AD, the Garamantian civilization had ceased. The Garamantes emerged as a major regional power in the mid-2nd century AD and established a kingdom that spanned roughly in the Fezzan region of southern Libya.

Fezzan