Nuqat al Khams District
Libya's 'Five Points' along the Tunisian border—agricultural villages feeding Tripoli while managing the cross-border trade that persists through every political upheaval.
Nuqat al Khams—the Five Points—exists because Libya's northwestern corner needed a name for its scattered coastal settlements. Stretching along the Mediterranean west of Tripoli toward the Tunisian border, this district comprises agricultural villages and small towns that serve the capital's vegetable markets and manage the cross-border trade that has flowed here since antiquity.
The "five points" traditionally referred to the five main settlements of this region, though the exact towns vary by historical period. What remains constant is the geographic logic: a fertile coastal strip backed by the Jifara Plain, close enough to both Tripoli and Tunisia to profit from commerce, distant enough to avoid the worst of political turmoil.
Italian colonizers settled farmers here, establishing the irrigated agriculture that still produces tomatoes, peppers, and citrus for Libyan markets. The district's population—roughly 280,000—includes descendants of those settlers alongside Arab and Amazigh communities whose presence predates colonial boundaries.
The Tunisian border defines the district's western edge and its informal economy. During Libya's isolation years, smuggling sustained communities on both sides. After 2011, weapons flowed out while migrants and goods flowed in. The border crossing at Ras Ajdir handles most legal traffic; countless desert tracks handle the rest.
Today, Nuqat al Khams functions as Tripoli's rural extension and Tunisia's economic interface. The farms continue producing; the smuggling continues flowing; the population continues growing through proximity to both the capital and the only land border that matters.
By 2026, the Tunisia connection becomes more critical as Libya's internal divisions harden. Whatever happens in Tripoli, food and goods will still cross these borderlands.