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