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Asmara ((ティグリニャ語:ኣስመራ), ''Asmera''), known locally as Asmera (meaning "The four (feminine plural) made them unite" in Tigrinya), is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea. Home to a population of around 649,000 inhabitants,〔 it sits at an elevation of . The city is located at the tip of an escarpment that is both the northwestern edge of the Eritrean highlands and the Great Rift Valley in neighbouring Ethiopia. Asmara is situated in Eritrea's central Maekel Region. It is known for its well-preserved colonial Italian modernist architecture.〔Mark Byrnes (An African City's Unusual Preservation Legacy ) Feb 08, 2012 Atlantic Cities〕 The city is divided into thirteen districts or administrative areas: Acria, Abbashaul, Edaga Hamus, Arbaete Asmara, Mai Temenai, Paradizo, Sembel, Godaif, Maekel Ketema or Downtown, Tiravolo, Gejeret, Tsetserat and Gheza Banda. ==History== Although it would be easy to think of Asmara, the Eritrean capital, solely as an Italian built colonial city, its origins actually reach back to between 800 BC and 400 BC. The Tigrinya and Tigre people live around there. Originally, it is said, there were four clans living in the Asmara area on the Kebessa Plateau: the Gheza Gurtom, the Gheza Shelele, the Gheza Serenser and Gheza Asmae. These towns fought each other until the women of each clan decided that to preserve peace the four clans must unite. The men accepted, hence the name Arbate Asmera. Arbaete Asmara literally means, in the Tigrinya language, "the four (feminine plural) made them unite". Eventually Arbaete was dropped and it has been called Asmara which means "they (thus referring to the women ) made them unite". Although there is still a zone called Arbaete Asmara. It is now called the Italianized version of the word Asmara. The westernized version of the name is used by a majority of non-Eritreans, while the multilingual inhabitants of Eritrea and neighboring peoples remain loyal to the original pronunciation, Asmera. An Ethiopian legend tells that in this region the Queen of Sheba gave birth to the son of Solomon, Menelik I. The missionary Remedius Prutky passed through Asmara in 1751, and described in his memoirs that a church built there by Jesuit priests 130 years before was still intact. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Asmara」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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