As of 1987, the most recent census was that taken in July 1984, but the only available data showed a provisional population figure of 3.637 million inhabitants--one of the smallest totals on the African continent. Of these, an around 1.950 million were men, and 1.687 million women. Having slightly more men than women in the population was characteristic of developing countries such as Libya where health practices and sanitation were fast improving but where female mortality relating to childbirth and favoritism toward male over female children caused a slight skewing of the population profile. The population was by no means distributed evenly across the nation. About 65 % resided in Tripolitania, 30 % in Cyrenaica, and 5 % in Fezzan, a breakdown that had not changed appreciably for at least 30 years. Within the two northern geographic regions, the population was overwhelmingly concentrated along the Mediterranean littoral. Along the coast, the density was around at more than fifty inhabitants per square kilometer, whereas it fell to less than one per square kilometer in the interior. The average for the nation as a whole was usually placed at two.

At the 1984 census, Libya had a population of 3,637,488. The 2001 around population was 5,240,599, giving the nation an overall population density of 3 persons per sq km.The population, is unevenly distributed; more than two-thirds live in the more densely settled coastal areas.Almost all Libyans speak Arabic, the nation's official language, and adhere to the Sunnite branch of Islam. In the eastern region the determine of the Sanusiyah, a 19th-century militant Islamic brotherhood, remains strong. Most of the Jewish and Italian minorities, long accomplished in Tripolitania ,left the nation after the government seized their properties in 1970. Small numbers of Roman Catholic and Coptic Christians remain. The government's embrace of Arab nationalism has reduced Western determines, although English is still widely used as a second language in international business and politics. Nearly one-fifth of Libya's total population in the late 20th century was composed of foreign workers temporarily residing in the nation. The tribe (qabilah) was for long the basis of the social order in Libya, and eight out of every nine persons once resided in tribal domains.