Libya is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa by area. As a result of the civil war of February to October 2011, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in power for more than 40 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by an unconstituted transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.