Albania Trivia
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46 free Albania trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Albania calls itself Shqiperia, the Land of the Eagles, and it packs an extraordinary amount into 28,748 square kilometres: Illyrian tribes and Greek colonies, Skanderbeg's 25-year stand against the Ottomans, four centuries of Ottoman rule, independence in 1912, King Zog, and Enver Hoxha's hermit communist state with its 750,000 bunkers and its constitutional atheism. This quiz covers all of it. You will find questions on geography, from Mount Korab and Lake Shkoder to the Vjosa, Europe's first wild river national park, and the Riviera; on the UNESCO sites of Butrint, Berat and Gjirokaster; on the language that is a branch of Indo-European all its own; on the 1997 pyramid-scheme collapse, NATO membership in 2009 and EU accession talks. Culture gets its share too: tave kosi and byrek, raki, iso-polyphony, Ismail Kadare, Mother Teresa's Albanian roots, Dua Lipa, Norman Wisdom's strange stardom under Hoxha and the national team at Euro 2016. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Albania, its cities, history and culture, so the dates, heights and names will stand up.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Albania has coastlines on the Adriatic and which other sea?
The Ionian
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.
Q 02What is the capital and largest city of Albania?
Tirana
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.
Q 03Albanians call their country Shqipëri, widely interpreted to mean what?
Land of the Eagles
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'.
Q 04Which ancient people, whose tribes included the Taulantii and Ardiaei, inhabited what is now Albania?
The Illyrians
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.
Q 05At which ancient Greek colony in today's Albania was Octavian studying when Julius Caesar was killed?
Apollonia
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.
Q 06Which Albanian hero deserted the Ottoman army and held Krujë for 25 years?
Skanderbeg
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.
Q 07Albania's independence from the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed in November 1912 in which port city?
Vlorë
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.
Q 08Before taking the crown in 1928, Ahmet Zogu had ruled Albania for three years under which title?
President
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.
Q 09Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania from 1944 to 1985, was born in which southern city?
Gjirokastër
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.
Q 10Who succeeded Enver Hoxha as leader of communist Albania in 1985?
Ramiz Alia
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.
Q 11Under Enver Hoxha, communist Albania declared itself the world's first what?
Atheist state
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.
Q 12After breaking with the Soviet Union in 1961, communist Albania relied on which country as its main ally?
China
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.
Q 13Which English comedian became a huge star in Hoxha's Albania, which allowed few Western films?
Norman Wisdom
Q 21Berat, a UNESCO site since 2008, is known to Albanians by which nickname?
The city of one-above-another windows
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.
Q 22The capital was founded in 1614 by an Ottoman Albanian nobleman who built which structure at its heart?
A mosque
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.
Q 23Since a 1908 congress, Albanian has been written in which script?
Latin
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.
Q 14The 1946 Corfu Channel incident involved Royal Navy ships striking what?
Mines
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.
Q 15Albania's violent 1997 unrest, which killed about 2,000 people, followed the collapse of what?
Pyramid investment schemes
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.
Q 16Which organisation did Albania join in April 2009?
NATO
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.
Q 17Which peak, Albania's highest, is also the highest point of neighbouring North Macedonia?
Mount Korab
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.
Q 18Which lake in Albania's north-west, shared with Montenegro, is the largest in the Balkans?
Shkodër
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.
Q 19The Vjosa, which runs from the Pindus to the Adriatic, was given which European first in 2023?
Wild-river national park status
Wild-river national park status came in March 2023 after years of campaigning by environmental groups against the hydropower dams planned for the river.
Q 20Butrint, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, lies near which resort close to the Greek border?
Sarandë
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.
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.
Q 24The Gheg and Tosk dialects of Albanian are divided by which river?
Shkumbin
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.
Q 25What is Albania's currency, introduced in 1926?
The lek
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.
Q 26Fearing invasion, Enver Hoxha's regime scattered well over 100,000 of which concrete structures across Albania?
Bunkers
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.
Q 27Which religious group formed the largest share of Albanians in the 2023 census, at about 46%?
Sunni Muslims
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.
Q 28Which Sufi order, headquartered in Albania, accounted for nearly 5% of the population in 2023?
Bektashi
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.
Q 29Mother Teresa, of Albanian family, was born in 1910 in which city?
Skopje
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.
Q 30Which Albanian novelist won the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005?
Ismail Kadare
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.