Albania's Geography

The shape of the country

Albania runs roughly 340 km north to south and about 150 km at its widest. A coastal plain runs down the Adriatic side from Shkodër to Vlorë; behind it the land rises quickly into hills and then mountains. South of Vlorë the plain ends and the Ceraunian mountains meet the sea directly, which is what creates the Riviera.

Two seas

The Adriatic and Ionian meet at the Karaburun peninsula near Vlorë. The Adriatic coast is shallow, sandy and lagoon-fringed. The Ionian coast is deep, rocky and clear. It is the single most useful geographical fact about an Albanian beach holiday.

Mountains and water

• Highest point: Mount Korab, 2,764 m, on the North Macedonian border.
• The Albanian Alps in the north — karst limestone, deep valleys, the Theth and Valbona valleys.
• The Ceraunian range along the southern coast, topped by Maja e Çikës at about 2,045 m.
• Three major lakes: Shkodër (the largest in southern Europe), Ohrid (among the oldest on Earth) and Prespa — each shared with a neighbour.
• The Drin, the longest river and the source of most of the country's electricity; the Vjosa, one of the last undammed large rivers in Europe.

Karst

Much of Albania is limestone, which dissolves in water. That produces caves, sinkholes, rivers that disappear underground, and springs like the Blue Eye where large volumes of water emerge from nowhere. It is also why the Valbona riverbed runs dry in late summer while water still moves beneath it.

How geography shaped Albanian history

The mountains decided who could rule where. The northern highlands were too poor and too steep to be worth occupying properly, so Ottoman governors left the clans of the Malësi to run themselves under their own customary law, the Kanun, in exchange for soldiers and nominal loyalty. That autonomy lasted into the 20th century, and it is why the north kept its tower houses, its clan names and its Catholic parishes.

The coast decided who came. The Strait of Otranto is the narrowest crossing between Italy and the Balkans, which made Durrës and Vlorë the natural landing places for Greek colonists, Roman armies, Norman and Angevin invaders, Venetian traders and, in 1939, Mussolini's troops. The Via Egnatia ran from that coast to Constantinople for a thousand years.

The borders were drawn by others. The great powers fixed Albania's frontiers at London in 1913 and confirmed them in the early 1920s, following mountain crests and lakes rather than where Albanians actually lived — which is why the lakes are shared, why Kosovo and western North Macedonia are largely Albanian-speaking, and why Albania is so much smaller than the area where its language is spoken.