although at the beginning of the 1940s nearly 28% of the population of italian eritrea were catholics, mostly italians and of the latin church, there was a pronounced fall in the number of italians present after the end of the second world war, when eritrea was at first under british military administration. the british census of 1949 showed that asmara, the capital, had only 17,183 italians out of a total population of 127,579. the departure of italians accelerated further when eritrea came under ethiopian authority at the end of 1950. the vicariate, which previously had under its jurisdiction the great majority of the catholics in eritrea, became less important numerically than the growing ordinariate, which on 31 october 1951 was raised to the level of an exarchate (the eastern equivalent of a vicariate) under the name of the apostolic exarchate of asmara, and on 28 february 1961 became an eparchy, the eastern equivalent of a diocese.