This article is about the modern Italian colonial empire. For other uses, see Imperial Italy (disambiguation).
"New Roman Empire" redirects here. For other uses, see New Rome (disambiguation).
Italian Empire
Impero italiano(Italian)
1882–1947
Flag
Kingdom of Italy
Colonies of Italy
Protectorates and areas occupied during World War II
Status
Colonial empire
King
• 1869–1878
Victor Emmanuel II
• 1878–1900
Umberto I
• 1900–1946
Victor Emmanuel III
• 1946
Umberto II
History
• Purchase of Assab
1869
• Italian Eritrea
1882
• Eritrea War
1887–1889
• Italian Somalia
1889
• Boxer Rebellion
1899–1901
• Italo-Turkish War
1911–1912
• Albanian Protectorate
1917–1920
• Pacification of Libya
1923–1932
• 2nd Italo-Ethiopian War
1935–1936
• Albanian Protectorate
1939–1943
• East Africa Campaign
1940–1941
• North African campaign
1940–1943
• Empire formally relinquished
1947
• Trust Territory of Somaliland
1950–1960
Area
1938[1]
3,798,000 km2 (1,466,000 sq mi)
1941[2]
3,824,879 km2 (1,476,794 sq mi)
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The Italian colonial empire (Italian: Impero coloniale italiano), also known as the Italian Empire (Impero italiano) between 1936 and 1941, was founded in Africa in the 19th century and it comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy. In Africa, the colonial empire included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia (the last three being officially named "Africa Orientale Italiana", AOI); outside Africa, Italy possessed the Dodecanese Islands (following the Italo-Turkish War), Albania (1917–1920 and 1939–1943)[3] and also had a concession in Tianjin, China.
In early 1940 it was the third greatest empire in the world (after the British and the French) for extention & population.
The Fascist government that came to power under the leadership of the dictator Benito Mussolini after 1922 sought to increase the size of the Italian empire and it also sought to satisfy the claims of Italian irredentists. Systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by the government,[4] and by 1939, Italian settlers numbered 120,000[5]–150,000[6] in Italian Libya and 165,000[5] in Italian East Africa.
During World War II, Italy allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940 and it also occupied British Somaliland, western Egypt, much of Yugoslavia, Tunisia, parts of south-eastern France and most of Greece; however, it then lost those conquests and its African colonies to the invading Allied forces by 1943. In 1947, Italy officially relinquished claims on its former colonies. In 1950, former Italian Somaliland, then under British administration, was turned into the Trust Territory of Somaliland until it became independent in 1960.
^Harrison, Mark (2000). The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison. Cambridge University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780521785037. Archived from the original on 16 October 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
^Soldaten-Atlas (Tornisterschrift des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht, Heft 39). Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. 1941. p. 32.
^Nigel Thomas. Armies in the Balkans 1914–18. Osprey Publishing, 2001, p. 17.
^Chapin Metz, Helen, ed., Libya: A Country Study. Chapter XIX.
^ abIstat (December 2010). "I censimenti nell'Italia unita I censimenti nell'Italia unita Le fonti di stato della popolazione tra il XIX e il XXI secolo ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI STATISTICA SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI DEMOGRAFIA STORICA Le fonti di stato della popolazione tra il XIX e il XXI secolo" (PDF). Annali di Statistica. XII. 2: 263. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 August 2014. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
The Italian colonial empire (Italian: Impero coloniale italiano), also known as the ItalianEmpire (Impero italiano) between 1936 and 1941, was founded...
unification of Italy in 1870. Mario Praz wrote about this style as the ItalianEmpire. In the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, the Empire style...
following is a list of the various Italian states during that period. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the arrival of the Middle Ages...
confined Italy to Eritrea. Later, after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Benito Mussolini's ItalianEmpire occupied Ethiopia and established Italian East Africa...
Italo-Ethiopian War through the merger of Italian Somalia, Italian Eritrea, and the newly occupied Ethiopian Empire. Italian East Africa was divided into six governorates...
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a...
Latin and Italian languages), also referred to as Roman Italy, was the homeland of the ancient Romans. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral...
Empire and is still used by Greeks. The Roman Empire's control of the Italian peninsula influenced Italian nationalism and the unification of Italy (Risorgimento)...
The Italian Islands of the Aegean (Italian: Isole italiane dell'Egeo; Greek: Ἰταλικαὶ Νῆσοι Αἰγαίου Πελάγους; Turkish: Ege'deki İtalyan Adaları) were an...
Fezzan) Italian Islands of the Aegean (1912–1947) Italian Albania (1939–1943) Italian France (1940–1943) Italian Montenegro (1941–1943) Italian concession...
Italian irredentism (Italian: irredentismo italiano, Italian: [irredenˈtizmo itaˈljaːno]) was a political movement during the late 19th and early 20th...
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The Kingdom of Italy (Italian: Regno d'Italia, Italian: [ˈreɲɲo diˈtaːlja]) was a state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia...
Italian Eritrea (Italian: Colonia Eritrea, "Colony of Eritrea") was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy in the territory of present-day Eritrea. The first...
their complete abolishment in 1955. Governorates of Italian East Africa In the Portuguese Empire, a governorate general (Portuguese: governo-geral) were...
Italian Ethiopia (Italian: Etiopia italiana), also known as the ItalianEmpire of Ethiopia, was the territory of the Ethiopian Empire which was occupied...
and the country was made a part of the ItalianEmpire as a protectorate in personal union with the Italian Crown. Albania had long been of considerable...
Party an idea of a new "Imperial Italy" (Italian: Italia imperiale), one that, like a recreation of the Roman Empire, went beyond Europe and included...
Empire during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911, alongside Italian Tripolitania. The territory of the two colonies was sometimes referred to as "Italian Libya"...
forge a strong ItalianEmpire as a Third Rome, identifying ancient Rome as the First Rome and Renaissance-era Italy as the Second Rome. Italian fascism has...
the 1861 unification of Italy, Italian nationalists and Italian fascists who saw Italy as the successor state to the Roman Empire attempted to revive the...
population of around 150,000 Italians. The Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were taken by Italy from the Ottoman Empire during the Italo-Turkish...
the ItalianEmpire. In 1950, Italian Somaliland was made a United Nations Trust Territory under Italian administration until 1 July 1960. The Italian border...
constituent kingdom of the Holy Roman EmpireItalianEmpire, Italy's colonies in the age of neo-imperialism Italian imperialism under Fascism This disambiguation...
Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to transfer the Roman Empire from...
war, thus ruining the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. Ultimately the ItalianEmpire collapsed after disastrous...