Postage stamps of Italian Libya

[1][2] The area now comprising Libya was originally a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire which was ceded to Italy in 1912[3] and became an Italian colony with its own stamps.

[6] From 1924 to 1934 Tripolitania and Cyrenaica also had their own stamps, before being unified in 1934, with Fezzan, as the Italian colony of Libya.

Stamps of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were used concurrently with those of Italian Libya.

[7] The most famous stamps of Italian Libya are those called Panoramiche, issued mainly in the late 1930s, that show Libyan landscape and city views.

[8] All the stamps of Italian Libya have bilingual inscriptions (Italian and Arabic) for the denominations, even during World War II when Germans of the "Afrika Korps" complained about the Arabic.

The first stamp of Italian Libya overprinted on the stamp of Italy, 1912
A 1921 stamp of Italian Libya showing the Roman Legionary
A 1930 stamp issued at the Tripoli International Fair