Arts – The birth of a national conscience for the liberation from five centuries of Ottoman rule coincides at the end of the nineteenth century with the awakening of Albanian figurative art. This occurs mainly in painting, where a break with the enduring Byzantine tradition is made: themes different from the traditional religious one are […]

A systematic exploration of the mineral riches of Albania has not yet been carried out: some products, certainly exploited in antiquity – especially the silver of which some mines were still open in 1600 – have not been found so far, others are little more than suspects. Currently hydrocarbons, both solid (asphalt, bitumen) and liquid […]

The waters. Springs, rivers, lakes. – The abundance of rains and snows explains the richness of the springs, which is a feature common to all of Albania, albeit to varying degrees, as their distribution is linked to the alternation of layers of different permeability. The springs feed a large number of mountain streams, which then […]

The excavation and restoration campaigns of late antique and early medieval buildings, which followed one another with ever greater rigor since the mid-20th century, have highlighted art and architecture in Albania as native variants within the Byzantine sphere. Examples are the basilica (three naves, transept and polygonal apse) and the baptistery of Butrint, from the […]

The foundation of economic life in Albania is agriculture, to which, however, the different parts of the country lend themselves very differently. The best parts are the flat and hilly areas of central and eastern Albania, with the basins and river valleys that enter, first of all the great Còrizza basin, entirely cultivated with great […]

The oldest evidence of human presence in Albania dates back to the Middle Paleolithic (sites of Xara and Shën-Marina, near Tirana). The most ancient Neolithic facies, characterized by ceramic, indicate the area as a suture zone between the two Balkan-Anatolian and Adriatic areas. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the arrival of Indo-European populations […]

Arts Albania lacks an original art of its own, for reasons that also refer to its geographical conformation and its historical vicissitudes. Very mountainous region, it is sparsely inhabited and therefore devoid of large agglomerations of people who could require notable constructions, embellished by the manifestations of art. Furthermore, the continuous succession of foreign dominions, […]

Albania Parliamentary republic, in the south-western part. of the Balkan Peninsula, with its capital city Tirana. The oldest evidence of human presence in Albania dates back to the Middle Paleolithic (sites of Xara and Shën-Marina, near Tirana). The most ancient Neolithic facies, characterized by ceramic, indicate the area as a suture zone between the two […]

Economic planning (started with the 1st five-year plan in 1951 and now at the end of the 5th plan) has radically transformed the Albanian economy, traditionally agricultural, into a modern agricultural-industrial economy. After leaving COMECON in 1961, the technical and financial aid of the Soviet Union was replaced by that of the People’s Republic of […]

Today we have official calculations on the distribution of land in Albania. From them it appears that 3450 sq. Km. (12.5%) are represented by workable land, 8260 by natural meadows and pastures (36%), 9910 by woods (35.9%), 1518 (15.6%) by uncultivated and unproductive land (including inland waters). It is confirmed that corn is the largest […]

The geographical knowledge of the Albanian territory is almost entirely due to explorations and researches carried out in the last hundred years. The first large harvest of reliable knowledge comes from the explorations of the two French geologists Ami Boué (1834-1864) and Viquesnel (1842-44 and 1847), who traveled numerous itineraries in Northern Albania and gave […]

According to necessaryhome, the Albanian population is made up of over two thirds (67%) of Muslims, about one fifth (21%) of Greek Orthodox, and 12% of Catholics. There are almost no Jews, with the exception of a few traders in the major centers. As can be seen from the table on p. 102 Muslims are […]