Italy became a country of mass emigration soon after the national reunification process in the late 1800s. Between 1898 and 1914, the peak years of Italian diaspora, approximately 750,000 Italians emigrated each year.[33] Italian communities once thrived in the former African colonies of Eritrea (nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II),[34] Somalia and Libya (150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population).[35] All of Libya's Italians were expelled from the North African country in 1970.[36] In the decade after World War II, up to 350,000 ethnic Italians left Yugoslavia (see Istrian exodus). Large numbers of people with full or significant Italian ancestry are currently found in Brazil (25 million),[38] Argentina (20 million), United States (17.8 million),[40] Uruguay (1.5 million),[41] Canada (1.4 million), Venezuela (900,000)[43] and Australia (800,000).[44]
