with German
Panzer III tanks (1941)
Italian Libya In March 1937, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made a state visit to Italian Libya to open this new military and civilian highway, built by governor-general
Italo Balbo. When Balbo died in 1940 in a plane crash, the Italian government named the 1822 kilometer road
Via Balbia in his honour. It was used to improve the economy and viability of the Italian colony of Libya. The Italians also constructed a minor long road parallel to the coastal road, starting from
Marj through
Marawa, to
Lamluda. 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. Near the middle of the road, the border of
Italian Tripolitania and
Italian Cyrenaica was marked by a
Marble Arch, named
Arch of Fileni. It was created 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 (Latin for "Oh kind Sun, may you never look upon a city greater than Rome"). The "Arch of Fileni" was demolished in 1970 by the new coup d'état revolutionary regime of
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.
World War II The highway was fully paved. However, in
World War II, during the
Western Desert Campaign of the Allies
North African Campaign, the road was heavily used in fighting the Axis forces, and remained damaged for decades. 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, the Libyan Coastal Highway.
Independent Libya The road was renamed Libyan Coastal Highway after the country gained independence and was improved with enlargements. It was fully repaved in 1967. According to
Hussein Maziq, prime minister of
Libya (1965–1967) under
King Idris, there had been plans to make this road a dual carriageway road. Two parts were built: the
Sabratha—
Tripoli—
Misrata section; and the
Ajdabiya—
Benghazi—
Taucheira section. The entire construction did not occur because of the coup d'état political change by Muammar Gaddafi on 1 September 1969. The "Arch of Fileni" was demolished in 1973 by the new revolutionary regime of dictator
Muammar Gaddafi. Before the 2011 Libyan civil war, the
General People's Committee of Libya had issued an order for the
Ras Ajdir—
Sabratha section to be a dual carriageway road. It's to be noted that some other roads in northern Cyrenaica are
more Coastal, or closer to the coast, than the coastal highway itself, like
Tolmeita-
Tauchira road, and
Derna-
Susa road.
First Libyan Civil War In the
First Libyan Civil War of 2011 the highway was an active component for combat movement and skirmishes, and when a section's access and transit is under control - a strategic and symbolic element. == Junctions ==