46 Fun Facts About Albania

Albania has coastlines on the Adriatic and which other sea?

The Ionian Sea takes over in the south, where the Ceraunian Mountains drop almost straight into the water, a sharp change from the flat, lagoon-fringed Adriatic shore further north.

What is the capital and largest city of Albania?

Tirana was a minor market town until a national congress made it the temporary capital in 1920; the choice became permanent in 1925 and it grew into by far Albania's largest city.

Albanians call their country Shqipëri, widely interpreted to mean what?

Land of the Eagles is the popular reading, tied to shqipe, 'eagle', the bird on the national flag; many scholars instead trace Shqipëri to a verb meaning 'to speak clearly'.

Which ancient people, whose tribes included the Taulantii and Ardiaei, inhabited what is now Albania?

The Illyrians are the people Albanians traditionally claim as ancestors, and many linguists think Albanian descends from an Illyrian tongue, though too little of it survives to prove the link.

At which ancient Greek colony in today's Albania was Octavian studying when Julius Caesar was killed?

Apollonia was a famed school town where the 18-year-old Octavian was finishing his studies in 44 BC; on hearing of the murder he crossed the Adriatic and learned that Caesar's will had made him heir.

Which Albanian hero deserted the Ottoman army and held Krujë for 25 years?

Skanderbeg left the sultan's army at Nish in 1443, seized Krujë and beat back every Ottoman invasion until his death in 1468; his stronghold fell only ten years later.

Albania's independence from the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed in November 1912 in which port city?

Vlorë is where Ismail Qemali raised the flag on 28 November 1912 as the First Balkan War swept away Ottoman rule; Albania still celebrates the date as Independence Day.

Before taking the crown in 1928, Ahmet Zogu had ruled Albania for three years under which title?

President was Zogu's title from 1925, when Albania was declared a republic; on 1 September 1928 the republic was turned into a kingdom and he took the throne as Zog I.

Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania from 1944 to 1985, was born in which southern city?

Gjirokastër, the hillside 'city of stone', was Hoxha's birthplace in 1908; his regime declared it a protected 'museum city' for its Ottoman-era tower houses, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Who succeeded Enver Hoxha as leader of communist Albania in 1985?

Ramiz Alia took over two days after Hoxha died in April 1985; pressed by student protests in 1990 he allowed rival parties, and he stepped down after his party lost the 1992 election.

Under Enver Hoxha, communist Albania declared itself the world's first what?

Atheist state: a 1967 campaign shut every place of worship, turning many into warehouses, gyms or workshops, and the 1976 constitution declared that the state recognised no religion.

After breaking with the Soviet Union in 1961, communist Albania relied on which country as its main ally?

China backed Albania with aid and technicians after the 1961 break with Moscow, until Hoxha denounced Beijing's opening to the United States and the partnership collapsed in 1978.

Which English comedian became a huge star in Hoxha's Albania, which allowed few Western films?

Norman Wisdom's slapstick films were among the handful of Western pictures Albanians could watch under Hoxha; he became so loved there that fans knew him simply as Pitkin, after his screen character.

The 1946 Corfu Channel incident involved Royal Navy ships striking what?

Mines crippled the destroyers HMS Saumarez and HMS Volage in the Corfu Channel in October 1946, killing dozens of sailors; the International Court of Justice later ordered Albania to pay Britain £844,000.

Albania's violent 1997 unrest, which killed about 2,000 people, followed the collapse of what?

The 1997 revolt erupted when pyramid investment schemes that had drawn in about two-thirds of the population collapsed; the state lost control of the south before a multinational force restored order.

Which organisation did Albania join in April 2009?

NATO took in Albania and Croatia together on 1 April 2009, and Albania filed its EU application later that month; membership talks with Brussels only opened in July 2022.

Which peak, Albania's highest, is also the highest point of neighbouring North Macedonia?

Mount Korab tops both countries, which share its summit on their border; it rises in the east, not in the better-known Albanian Alps of the north.

Which lake in Albania's north-west, shared with Montenegro, is the largest in the Balkans?

Lake Shkodër swells from under 400 km² in summer to about 530 km² at high water, enough to make it the Balkans' largest lake; the Buna river drains it to the Adriatic.

The Vjosa, which runs from the Pindus to the Adriatic, was given which European first in 2023?

Wild-river national park status came in March 2023 after years of campaigning by environmental groups against the hydropower dams planned for the river.

Butrint, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, lies near which resort close to the Greek border?

Sarandë, the resort facing Corfu, is the gateway to Butrint, a city Virgil has Aeneas visit on his flight from Troy; looting during the 1997 unrest put it on UNESCO's danger list until 2005.

Berat, a UNESCO site since 2008, is known to Albanians by which nickname?

The city of one-above-another windows gets its name from the old quarters below the castle, where the big windows of stacked hillside houses seem to sit on top of one another.

The capital was founded in 1614 by an Ottoman Albanian nobleman who built which structure at its heart?

A mosque: the founder, Sulejman Bargjini, raised it with a hammam beside it as the core of his new town; damaged in the Second World War, it was razed, and the Unknown Soldier monument now stands on the site.

Since a 1908 congress, Albanian has been written in which script?

Latin letters won out at the 1908 congress; until then Albanian was written in Latin, Greek or Arabic script, largely following the writer's religion.

The Gheg and Tosk dialects of Albanian are divided by which river?

The Shkumbin, which flows past Elbasan to the Adriatic, marks the traditional Gheg-Tosk line: Gheg is spoken north of it and Tosk, the basis of standard Albanian, to the south.

What is Albania's currency, introduced in 1926?

The lek, first issued in 1926, is commonly said to honour Alexander the Great, Leka in Albanian, whose portrait was on the first one-lek coin; another account names the medieval lord Lekë Dukagjini.

Fearing invasion, Enver Hoxha's regime scattered well over 100,000 of which concrete structures across Albania?

Bunkers went up on beaches, hillsides and city streets from the 1960s to the 1980s and were never used in war; some of the survivors now serve as cafés, storerooms or animal shelters.

Which religious group formed the largest share of Albanians in the 2023 census, at about 46%?

Sunni Muslims are a legacy of Ottoman rule, when most Albanians converted over several centuries; in the 2023 census about 46% ticked Sunni Islam, with Catholics and Orthodox Christians under 10% each.

Which Sufi order, headquartered in Albania, accounted for nearly 5% of the population in 2023?

The Bektashi order, a Shia-leaning Sufi brotherhood, moved its world headquarters to Albania after Turkey banned Sufi orders in 1925; it counted 4.8% of Albanians in 2023.

Mother Teresa, of Albanian family, was born in 1910 in which city?

Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, then an Ottoman city, in 1910; Albania claims her as its own all the same and named its international airport after her.

Which Albanian novelist won the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005?

Ismail Kadare took the inaugural prize, then given for a writer's whole body of work; he had made his name with The General of the Dead Army and sought political asylum in France in 1990.

Tavë kosi, one of Albania's national dishes, is mutton and rice baked under a mixture of eggs and what?

Yogurt gives the dish its name, since kos is the Albanian word for it; thought to come from Elbasan, tavë kosi spread to Greece and Turkey, where it is known as Elbasan tava.

Which spirit, often distilled at home, is regarded as Albania's national drink?

Raki in Albania is usually distilled from grapes, though plums are common too; a shot can turn up even at breakfast, alongside the bread, cheese and olives.

A 2018 report put Albania ahead of Spain for the most of what per person?

Bars and cafés: the Albanian magazine Monitor worked out about 654 for every 100,000 people from 2016 figures, edging past Spain's 592, though its count took bars, cafés and restaurants together.

Dua Lipa was born in London to ethnic Albanian parents who had left which place in the 1990s?

Dua Lipa's parents, Anesa and Dukagjin Lipa, left Pristina, Kosovo, in 1992; the family later moved back there, and at 15 she returned to London on her own to pursue music.

Albania reached the group stage of a major football tournament for the first time at which event?

Albania qualified for Euro 2016 in France, its first major finals, after opening the campaign with a 1-0 win in Portugal; a 1-0 victory over Romania gave it a first tournament win.

Queen Teuta, whose pirates raided the Adriatic from today's Albania, was defeated by which rising power?

Rome declared war in 229 BC after Teuta's pirates preyed on merchant ships and one of its envoys was killed; beaten within a year, she gave up her southern territory and paid tribute.

Thanks to families who sheltered them, Albania ended the Second World War with more of which persecuted people than before?

Jews were protected under besa, the Albanian code of honour that binds a host to a guest; officials refused to hand lists to the German occupiers, and almost all of the country's Jews survived.

Which country invaded Albania in 1939, forcing King Zog into exile?

Mussolini's Italy invaded on 7 April 1939 and made Victor Emmanuel III king of Albania; Zog fled via Greece, and Germany took over after Italy's 1943 armistice.

Albania is closest in size to which of these countries?

Belgium is only slightly larger than Albania yet holds nearly five times as many people, close to 12 million against the 2.4 million counted in Albania's 2023 census.

Which 1970s Saturday Night Live star was the son of an Albanian immigrant who ran a Chicago restaurant?

John Belushi was born in Chicago to a father who had emigrated from the Albanian village of Qytezë and a mother whose parents came from Korçë; an Albanian Orthodox priest led his funeral.

Which port city is Albania's largest and busiest seaport?

Durrës has been a gateway since antiquity, when, as Dyrrhachium, it was the western end of the Via Egnatia, the highway that crossed the Balkans to Byzantium; it remains Albania's chief seaport.

Which lake is shared by Albania, Greece and North Macedonia?

Prespa, split among Albania, Greece and North Macedonia, has no river outlet: its water seeps away through limestone channels and feeds Lake Ohrid, which lies lower down.

Which Albanian-born Ottoman ruler of Ioannina, nicknamed the Lion, was killed in 1822?

Ali Pasha ruled Ioannina and much of Albania and Greece almost as an independent prince and received Lord Byron at his court in 1809; the sultan finally sent an army that besieged and killed him in 1822.

Which city hosted the 1908 congress that standardised the Albanian alphabet?

The Congress of Manastir met in November 1908 in the city now called Bitola, in North Macedonia; Albanians still mark its closing day, 22 November, as Alphabet Day.

Which kind of fish is Lake Ohrid's endemic koran, now threatened by overfishing?

Trout: the koran is one of more than 200 species native only here, because Lake Ohrid, among Europe's oldest lakes, has stayed isolated for well over a million years.

Which name, used by medieval Albanians, is borne by the old Albanian communities of Calabria and Sicily?

Medieval Albanians called themselves Arbëreshë, from Arbëria; refugees who fled to Calabria and Sicily in the 15th and 16th centuries kept the name, which their descendants retain.