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Main article: History of Asmara
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Asmara.
According to Eritrean Tigrinya oral traditional history, there were four clans living in the Asmera area on the Kebessa Plateau: the Gheza Gurtom, the Gheza Shelele, the Gheza Serenser and Gheza Asmae. These villages were frequently attacked by clans from the lowlands, until the women of each clan decided that to preserve peace the four clans must unite. The men accepted, hence the name "Arbate Asmera". Arbate Asmera literally means, in the Tigrinya language, "the four (feminine plural) made them unite".
The first mention of Asmara comes from a Latin itinerary during the reign of Emperor Dawit I (1382–1411).
Italian Asmara[edit]
Asmara in 1935
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. Governor Ferdinando Martini made it the capital city of Italian Eritrea in 1897.
In the early 20th century, the Eritrean Railway was built to the coast, passing through the town of Ghinda, under the direction of Carlo Cavanna. In both 1913 and 1915 the city suffered only slight damage in large earthquakes.
A large Italian community developed the city. 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. (Compare this to the Italian colonization of Libya, where the settler population, albeit larger, was more dispersed.)
The capital acquired an Italian architectural look. Europeans used Asmara "to experiment with radical new designs". By the late 1930s, Asmara was called Piccola Roma (Little Rome). Journalist John Gunther noted in 1955 that "the Italians built [Asmara] well, like 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.” 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).
The Kingdom of Italy invested in the industrial development of Asmara (and surrounding areas of Eritrea), 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".
Federation with Ethiopia[edit]
In 1952, the United Nations resolved to federate the former colony under Ethiopian rule. During the Federation, Asmara was no longer the capital city. The capital was now Addis Ababa, over 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) to the south. In 1961, Emperor Haile Selassie I ended the "federal" arrangement and declared the territory to be the 14th province of the Ethiopian Empire. Ethiopia's biggest ally was the United States. The city was home to the US Army's Kagnew Station installation from 1943 until 1977. The Eritrean War of Independence began in 1961 and ended in 1991, resulting in the independence of Eritrea. Asmara was left relatively undamaged throughout the war, as were the majority of highland regions. After independence, Asmara again became the capital of Eritrea.
