History of Asmara

irection of Carlo Cavanna. In both 1913 and 1915 the city suffered only slight damage in large earthquakes. In the late 1930s the Italians changed the face of the town, with a new structure and new buildings: Asmara was called Piccola Roma (Little Rome).

While Eritrea was under Italian colonial rule, architecturally conservative early-20th-century Europeans used Asmara "to experiment with radical new designs." Nowadays the major part of buildings are of Italian origin, and shops still have Italian names (e.g., Bar Vittoria, Pasticceria moderna, Casa del formaggio, and Ferramenta).

Asmara was populated by a numerous Italian community and consequently the city acquired an Italian architectural look. The city of Asmara had a population of 98,000, of which 53,000 were Italian according to the Italian census of 1939. This fact made Asmara the main "Italian town" of the Italian empire in Africa. In all Eritrea the Italians were 75,000 in that year.

Many industrial investments were made by Italy in Asmara, but the beginning of World War II stopped the blossoming industrialization of the area.

British occupation

Italy was defeated in 1941, and the British administered the city and the rest of the country from 1941 to 1952. During this time, many industries were shipped out of the city to other British colonies like India and Kenya. The British maintained initially the Italian administration of Eritrea, but the country soon started to be involved in a violent process of independence: from the British in the late forties, and from the Ethiopians after 1952, who annexed Eritrea in that year). Asmara was one of the cities (along with