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Asmara

Capital of EritreaAsmara sits about 2,330 m above sea level on the Eritrean Highlands, at the tip of an escarpment. East of the city the high ground falls away to hot lowlands along the Red Sea.

Why it's the capital

Asmara was a small village when Italy occupied it in 1889. Governor Ferdinando Martini made it the capital of Italian Eritrea in 1897, and after Eritrea won independence, Asmara became the national capital again.

Fun facts

  1. Its name comes from the Tigrinya words "Arbate Asmera", meaning "the four made them unite", after the women of four clans persuaded them to unite for peace.
  2. In 2017 it became the first modernist city anywhere to be listed in its entirety as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  3. So many Italian buildings went up that by the late 1930s Asmara was called Piccola Roma, or "Little Rome".

Finding it on the globe

Find Eritrea on the Red Sea coast, north of Ethiopia, and move a short way inland onto the highlands. Asmara is more than 1,000 km north of Addis Ababa.

Sources: Wikipedia: Asmara