 One of these was the "Eritrea Governorate".The original Italian Eritrea, called even "Colonia primogenita" (first colony), was enlarged of 110.000 km2 with territories ("Tigrai") taken from northern Ethiopia that were populated mostly by ethnic Eritreans.In 1938 the Eritrea governorate was divided in 13 "commissariati" (provinces)

The Eritrea Governorate in 1938 had an area of 231,280 km² and a population of more than 1500,000 - of which nearly 100,000 were Italian colonists concentrated in Asmara.