Kufra or Kofra also spelled Cufra, is the largest district of Libya

Libya

Libya is an African 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....

. Its capital is Al Jawf

Al Jawf, Libya

Al Jawf is a town in southeastern Libya, the capital of the Kufra district in Libya.The city has an elevation of 382.2 m . In a 1984 census the city's population was 17,320. Al Jawf receives almost no rain whatsoever, averaging only .1 inch per year. Summer high temperatures average above 100°F...

, one of the oases in Kufra

Kufra

Kufra is a basin and oasis group in Al Kufrah District, southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. Kufra is historically important above all because at the end of nineteenth century it became the center and holy place of the Senussi order...

 basin. There is a very large oil refinery

Oil refinery

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

 near the capital.
In the late 15th century, Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus

Joannes Leo Africanus, was a Moorish diplomat and author who is best known for his book Descrittione dell’Africa describing the geography of North Africa.-Biography:Most of what is known about his life is gathered from autobiographical...

 reported an oasis in the land of the Berdoa, visited by a caravan coming from Awjila

Awjila

Awjila is a Berber-speaking oasis town in the Al Wahat District in the Cyrenaica region of northeastern Libya. It is the place after which the Awgila-Berber language, an Eastern Berber language, is named...

. It is possible that this oasis was identical with either the Al Jawf or the Taiserbo

Tazirbu

Tāzirbū , is an Oasis placed in the Libyan Desert in the Al Kufrah District of Libya, about 250 km to the NW of Kufra. The name means "main seat" in Tebu language, because this was the seat of the Tebu Sultanate before the Arab invasion. The oasis is 25-30 km long, and 10 km wide...

 oasis, and on early modern maps, the Al Kufra region was often labelled as Berdoa based on this report.
The name Kufra itself is a derivation from kafir

Kafir

Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

, the Arabic term for non-Muslims.
Kufra did not fall under the dominion of either the Arabs

History of Islamic Tripolitania and Cyrenaica

Arab rule in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica began as early as the 7th century. With tenuous Byzantine control over Libya restricted to a few poorly defended coastal strongholds, the Arab horsemen who first crossed into Pentapolis, Cyrenaica in September 642 encountered little resistance...

 or the Ottomans

Ottoman Tripolitania

The coastal region of what is today Libya was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911, from 1864 as the Vilayet of Tripolitania . It was also known as the Kingdom of Tripoli, even though it was not technically a kingdom, but an Ottoman province ruled by pashas , as the Karamanli dynasty...

 and was colonized by Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

 tribe of the Zuwayya

Zuwayya

The Zuwayya are an independent Murabtin tribe, one of the major Arab Bedouin tribes of Cyrenaica, Libya.Traditionally practicing nomadic pastoralism of sheep and camels in a triangular area with its apex at Ajdabiya, the Zuwayya conquered the richest oasis of the interior, Kufra, in 1840,...

 only in the mid 19th century, and eventually by the Italians

History of Libya as Italian Colony

The History of Libya as an Italian colony began in the 1910s and lasted until February 1947, when Italy officially lost all the colonies of the former Italian Empire.-First years:...

 by the 1930s.

Following the 2011 civil war

2011 Libyan civil war

The 2011 Libyan civil war was an armed conflict in the North African state of Libya, fought between forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and those seeking to oust his government. The war was preceded by protests in Benghazi beginning on 15 February 2011, which led to clashes with security...

, the area is reported to be under control of the Libyan opposition, but on 28 April 2011 forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...

 seized the southeastern city of Kufra.

Kufra's location in Libya's southeast places it on the country's border with Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

 (unlike any other Libyan district), and Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

. It borders the following regions of these countries:

• New Valley Governorate, Egypt - east
• Shamaliyah State, Sudan
  Northern, Sudan
  Northern is one of the 15 wilayat or states of Sudan. It has an area of 348,765 km² and an estimated population of 833,743 . Dongola is the capital of the state. The town of Wadi Halfa, a headquarters of the British in the late nineteenth century, is located in the north of the province....
  
   - southeast
• North Darfur State, Sudan
  North Darfur
  North Darfur is one of the 15 wilayat or states of Sudan. It is one of the three states composing the Darfur region. It has an area of 296,420 km² and an estimated population of approximately 1,583,000 . Al-Fashir is the capital of the state...
  
   - far southeast
• Bourkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region, Chad
  Bourkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region
  The Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti was until 2008 one of the then 18 regions of Chad, its capital being Faya-Largeau. It comprised the former Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture...
  
   - south

Domestically, it borders the following districts:

• Murzuq - west
• Jufra - northwest
• Al Wahat - north

Before 2007, Kufra District was larger, including a strip of desert in the north that has been moved to Al Wahat District (map).

Oases

Besides the main Oasis group of the Kufra basin, four more oases belong to the region, which lie northwest of Kufra basin: Rabyanah

Rabyanah

Rabyānah is an Oasis placed in the Libyan Desert in the Al Kufrah District of Libya, about 120 km W of Al-Tag, Kufra. A salt lake separates the oasis from a hill chain. To the N edge of the oasis there is a village with a Zaouia....

, Buzema, Wadi Zighen

Wadi Zighen

Wadi Zighen is a depression placed in the Libyan Desert in the Al Kufrah District of Libya, about 180 km N-NW of Al-Tag, Kufra und E of Tazirbu. There are five water wells, the most important is named Bir el Hárasc. Around the wells grow some palms, but there are no permanent inhabitants....

and Tazirbu

Tazirbu

Tāzirbū , is an Oasis placed in the Libyan Desert in the Al Kufrah District of Libya, about 250 km to the NW of Kufra. The name means "main seat" in Tebu language, because this was the seat of the Tebu Sultanate before the Arab invasion. The oasis is 25-30 km long, and 10 km wide...

. The oasis-valleys of Jabal Arkanu

Jabal Arkanu

Jabal Arkanu is a mountain and a valley-oasis placed in the Libyan Desert in the Kufra District of Libya, about 300 km southeast of El Tag...

and Jabal Al-Uwaynat lie southeast of the basin.