Editing Asmara (section)

===Italian Asmara===
[[File:Asmara 1935 Panorama (2567806345).jpg|thumb|left|Asmara in 1935]]
[[File:Mappa di Asmara TCI 1929.jpg|thumb|280px|left|Map of Italian Asmara in 1929]]
Asmara, a small village in the nineteenth century, started to grow quickly when it was occupied by Italy in 1889.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dadfeatured.blogspot.com/2018/08/italian-asmara.html|title=Dadfeatured: ITALIAN ASMARA|date=6 August 2018}}</ref> Governor [[Ferdinando Martini]] made it the capital city of [[Italian Eritrea]] in 1897.<ref>{{cite book|author=AA.VV.|title=Guida dell'Africa Orientale Italiana|publisher=Consociazione Turistica Italiana|page=199|location=Milano|year=1994|language=it}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, the [[Eritrean Railway]] was built to the coast, passing through the town of [[Ghinda]], under the direction of [[Cavanna family#Early migration and diaspora|Carlo Cavanna]]. In both [[1913 Asmara earthquake|1913]] and [[1915 Asmara earthquake|1915]] the city suffered only slight damage in large earthquakes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ambraseys|first=Nicolas|author-link=Nicholas Ambraseys|author2=Melville, C.P. |author3=Adams, R.D. |title=The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea: A Historical Review|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1994|isbn=0-521-39120-2}}</ref>

A large [[Italian Eritreans|Italian community]] developed the city.<ref>Roman Adrian Cybriwsky, ''Capital Cities around the World: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture'', ABC-CLIO, USA, 2013, p. 19</ref> According to the 1939 census, Asmara had a population of 98,000, of whom 53,000 were Italian. Only 75,000 Italians lived in all of Eritrea, thus making the capital city by far their largest centre.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.maitacli.it |title=Benvenuto sul sito del Maitacli |access-date=8 July 2011 |language=it|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110722041546/http://www.maitacli.it/|archive-date= 22 July 2011 |url-status= live}}</ref> (Compare this to the [[Italian colonization of Libya]], where the settler population, albeit larger, was more dispersed.)

The capital acquired an [[Italian modern and contemporary architecture|Italian architectural look]]. Europeans used Asmara "to experiment with radical new designs".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070915/ENTERTAINMENT/109150018/1007 |title=Asmara useful for experimenting with radical designs for Europeans |newspaper=[[The Washington Times]] |date=15 September 2007 |access-date=8 December 2010}}</ref> By the late 1930s, Asmara was called ''Piccola Roma'' (Little Rome).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fedoa.unina.it/1881/01/Santoianni_Progettazione_Architettonica.pdf|title=Italian architectural planification of Asmera (in Italian) p. 64-66}}</ref> Journalist [[John Gunther (journalist)|John Gunther]] noted in 1955 that "the Italians built [Asmara] well, like [[Tripoli, Libya|Tripoli]], with handsome wide streets, ornate public buildings, and even such refinements of civilization as a modern sewage system ... [Asmara] gives the impression of being a pleasant enough small city in [[Calabria]], or even [[Umbria]].”<ref name="Gunther">{{cite book
  | last = Gunther
  | first = John
  | title = Inside Africa
  | publisher = Harper & Brothers
  | year = 1955
  | page = 278
  | isbn = 0836981979}}</ref> Nowadays more than 400 buildings are of Italian origin, and many shops still have Italian names (e.g., ''Bar Vittoria'', ''Pasticceria moderna'', ''Casa del formaggio'', and ''Ferramenta'').

[[Kingdom of Italy|The Kingdom of Italy]] invested in the industrial development of Asmara (and surrounding areas of Eritrea),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2015_04_01_archive.html|title=ITALIAN ERITREA INDUSTRIES|date=9 April 2015}}</ref> but the beginning of [[World War II]] brought this to a halt.

[[UNESCO]] made Asmara a World Heritage Site in July 2017, saying "It is an exceptional example of early modernist urbanism at the beginning of the 20th century and its application in an African context".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mg.co.za/article/2017-07-14-00-asmara-the-capital-of-art-deco/|title=Asmara, the capital of Art Deco|date=14 July 2017}}</ref>