History
Prior to the Italian invasion of 1911, the area of Libya was administered as three separate provinces ("Vilayets") of the Ottoman Empire: Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica.
At first Italy continued the tripartite administration, but soon consolidated the area into a single province/gobernatorate administered as the "Libyan Colony". Indeed until about 1931 -when the last of the native resistance to the Italians was subdued- the area was divided into three historical regions (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan/"Territorio Sahara").
Then, in 1937 Italian governor Italo Balbo created the political entity called Libya. His Italian Libya was with four provinces and one territory: Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi, Derna, (in the coastal north) and the "Territory of the Libyan Sahara" (in the Saharan south).
After the French and British occupied Libya in 1943, it was again split into three provinces: Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the east, and Fezzan-Ghadames in the southwest.
After independence, Libya was divided into three governorates (muhafazat), matching the three provinces of before, but in 1963 it was divided into ten governorates.
Read more about this topic: Subdivisions Of Libya
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