Historical period
Prehistoric Albania
Cave settlement at Konispol, and one of Europe's oldest lakeside pile villages under Lake Ohrid.
In plain language
This section tells Albania's story from the very beginning to now, split into time periods, with pages about the most important people.
Historical periods
16
Historical period
The Illyrians
The Indo-European tribes of the western Balkans, and the ancestors most Albanians claim.
Historical period
The Greek Colonies
Corinthian and Corcyraean foundations at Epidamnos, Apollonia and Orikum along the coast.
Historical period
Roman Illyricum
The Via Egnatia crossed here, making the coast Rome's gateway to Greece and the East.
Historical period
Byzantine Albania
Nine centuries of eastern Roman rule, interrupted by Bulgarians, Normans, Serbs and Angevins.
Historical period
Medieval Principalities
Arbanon, then the Angevin Kingdom of Albania, then the great noble houses — Thopia, Balsha, Kastrioti, Arianiti.
Historical period
Skanderbeg and the League of Lezhë
Twenty-five years in which a coalition of Albanian nobles held off the Ottoman Empire at its height.
Historical period
Ottoman Albania
Four and a half centuries in the empire — mass conversion to Islam, powerful local pashas, and eventually a national…
Historical period
The Albanian National Awakening
The Rilindja: the League of Prizren, the fight for an alphabet, and the first Albanian-language school.
Historical period
Independence, 1912
Declared at Vlorë on 28 November 1912 as the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the Balkan Wars.
Historical period
The Zog Years
From the Congress of Lushnjë to a republic, then a monarchy, under Ahmet Zogu.
Historical period
Italian Occupation
Italy invaded on 7 April 1939; Albania was annexed under the Italian crown until Italy's surrender.
Historical period
Albania in the Second World War
Occupation, a three-way resistance, and the sheltering of Jewish refugees under besa.
Historical period
Communist Albania
Forty-six years under Enver Hoxha and his successor: total collectivisation, the banning of religion, successive…
Historical period
The Transition
The fall of the regime, mass emigration, and the 1997 collapse of the pyramid schemes.
Historical period
Modern Albania
NATO membership in 2009, EU candidate status in 2014, and tourism growing into a central industry.
People
11
Person
Enver Hoxha
The leader who took Albania out of the Soviet bloc, then out of the Chinese one, and banned religion outright.
Person
Skanderbeg
Gjergj Kastrioti: an Ottoman commander who changed sides and held Albania against the empire for twenty-five years.
Person
Ali Pasha of Tepelena
The 'Lion of Ioannina': an Ottoman governor who built his own state, courted Britain and France, and was finally…
Person
Mother Teresa
Born in Skopje to an Albanian family from Prizren and Shkodër; canonised in 2016 and now a national symbol.
Person
Zog I
Ahmet Zogu: prime minister at 27, president at 30, king at 33, and in exile at 43.
Person
Fan Noli
The Orthodox bishop who translated Shakespeare into Albanian and led a government for six months.
Person
Ismail Kadare
The writer who found ways to describe a totalitarian state from inside it, in novels read worldwide.
Person
Ismail Qemali
The Ottoman statesman who raised the flag at Vlorë and led Albania's first provisional government.
Person
Naim Frashëri
The most influential writer of the Rilindja, and one of three brothers central to the national movement.
Person
Onufri
The 16th-century painter whose red pigment and expressive faces defined Albanian icon painting.
Person
The Marubi Dynasty
Pietro Marubi and his successors photographed the north for a century, leaving half a million negatives.
Historic and archaeological sites
28
Historic site
Albania's Bunkers
Roughly 170,000 concrete pillboxes built under Enver Hoxha — the most visible physical legacy of the communist state.
Historic site
Antigonea
A short-lived Epirote city founded by King Pyrrhus and burned by Rome in 167 BC.
Historic site
Apollonia
A Corinthian colony that became a Roman university town — Octavian was studying here when Caesar was killed.
Historic site
Ardenica Monastery
A hilltop monastery on the Myzeqe plain where, by tradition, Skanderbeg was married in 1451.
Historic site
Berat Castle
A fortress people still live inside, holding some twenty churches and the Onufri icon museum.
Historic site
Butrint
A Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman city layered on one wooded peninsula — Albania's first UNESCO site.
Historic site
Byllis
The largest Illyrian city yet excavated, on a plateau above the Vjosa with five early Christian basilicas.
Historic site
Durrës Amphitheatre
The largest Roman amphitheatre in the Balkans, found by accident in 1966 under the modern city.
Historic site
Et'hem Bey Mosque
The small mosque on Skanderbeg Square whose frescoes of trees and waterfalls are unusual in Islamic art.
Historic site
Fortress of Bashtovë
A rare rectangular lowland fortress built by Venice to guard a river port on the Shkumbin.
Historic site
Gjirokastër Castle
One of the largest castles in the Balkans, holding an artillery gallery and a captured US aircraft.
Historic site
Krujë Castle
Skanderbeg's base, which held out against three Ottoman sieges and now houses the national museum of the resistance.
Historic site
Lin Basilica Mosaics
Floor mosaics of birds and vines from a hilltop basilica above Lake Ohrid.
Historic site
Mesi Bridge
A 108 m, thirteen-arch packhorse bridge over the Kir north-east of Shkodër.
Historic site
Porto Palermo Castle
A triangular fortress on a causeway peninsula, built for Ali Pasha of Tepelena.
Historic site
Skanderbeg Museum
The museum of the 15th-century resistance, built inside Krujë Castle by Enver Hoxha's daughter and son-in-law.
Historic site
The Churches of Voskopojë
Six surviving basilicas of a town that once rivalled any city in the Balkans, covered inside with frescoes.
Historic site
The Pyramid of Tirana
Built as Enver Hoxha's mausoleum-museum, later a nightclub and NATO base, reopened in 2023 as a youth technology…
Historic site
Rozafa Castle
The rock fortress above the meeting of three rivers, and the setting of Albania's best-known legend.
Historic site
National History Museum
Albania's principal museum, under the Skanderbeg Square mosaic mural known as 'The Albanians'.
Historic site
Amantia
An Illyrian hill city whose stadium — cut into the slope — is among the best preserved in the region.
Historic site
Durrës Castle
Byzantine sea walls raised under Anastasius I, later strengthened by Venice and the Ottomans.
Historic site
Elbasan Castle
An Ottoman fortress built on a Roman site, with a living town inside its walls.
Historic site
Prezë Castle
A compact hill castle between Tirana and the airport, with a view over the whole plain.
Historic site
Marubi National Museum of Photography
The archive of the Balkans' oldest photographic studio — about 500,000 negatives from 1858 onward.
Historic site
Petrelë Castle
A small triangular castle on a wooded crag above the Erzen, half an hour from Tirana.
Historic site
House of Leaves
The former headquarters of the Sigurimi's technical surveillance branch, kept as it was found.
Historic site
Bunk'Art
A five-storey anti-nuclear bunker built for the communist leadership, opened to the public in 2014.