Which is the second largest city in Libya?

Benghazi is the main port of Cyrenaica on the Mediterranean coast, in Eastern Libya, and as such it is one of Libya's major economic centres. The city is the second largest in Libya after the capital Tripoli, with a population of nearly one million people (with confirmed 500,120 according to 1995 census).

The name Benghazi occurs in various forms, including Bengazi, Benghazi, Banghazi, Bingazi, Bengasi or Binghazi. During the Greek period the city was initially known as Eusperides or Euesperides (around 525 BC), after it was associated with the mythological Hesperides Garden, owing to the fertility of not only the area around Benghazi but also of the whole verdant Green Mountain we now know as Barqa. After Eusperides was abandoned around 347 BC, a new settlement was started nearby, which became Berenice (one of the five cities of the the Pentapolis) around 249 BC, after the Berber princess Berenice, Bernice, or Berenike, the daughter of the Cyrenaican king Magas.

The etymology of the name Berenice means: "the bearer of victory", from which we also have the local name of the region of Cyrenaica, namely Barqa, Barce or Barka. These names appear to have had been used until around 1450 AD, when the name was suddenly changed to its current form Benghazi.