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TheFourth Shore (Italian:Quarta Sponda) orItalian North Africa (Italian:Africa Settentrionale Italiana, ASI) was the name created byBenito Mussolini to refer to the Mediterranean shore of coastal colonialItalian Libya and, during World War II, Axis-occupiedTunisia in thefascist-eraKingdom of Italy, during the late Italian colonial period ofLibya and theMaghreb.
The term Fourth Shore derives from thegeography of Italy, a long and narrowpeninsula jutting into theMediterranean Sea with two principalshorelines, the "First Shore" on the east along theAdriatic Sea and the "Second Shore" on the west along theTyrrhenian Sea. The Adriatic Sea's oppositeBalkan shore, includingDalmatia,Montenegro, andAlbania, was planned for Italian expansion as the Third Shore, with Libya on the Mediterranean Sea becoming the fourth.[1]
Thus the Fourth Shore was the southern part ofGreater Italy, an early 1940sFascist project of enlarging Italy's national borders around the Mediterranean.
