The
Republic of Albania (
Albanian:
Republika e Shqipris) is a
mountainous Mediterranean country in southeast
Europe. It has
borders with
Montenegro in the north,
Serbia (
Kosovo) in the north-east, the
Republic of Macedonia in the east, and
Greece in the south, and coasts on the
Adriatic Sea in the west and the
Ionian Sea in the southwest. The
capital is
Ottoman-founded
Tirana while the
second city is the ancient
port of
Durrs. The main language is
Albanian, an
Indo-European language of disputed ancestry. The
population was estimated to be over 3,500,000 in
2004, with 70%
Muslim and 20%
Greek Orthodox.
The first civilisation was Illyrian, around 900 BC. Conquered by Rome and Byzantium, the area was seized by the Ottomans about 1385. Despite the efforts of the national hero Skanderbeg from 1443 to 1478, only in 1912 was independence reestablished (by now Albania had been islamized ), following a rise of Albanian nationalism and the First Balkan War. WWI saw several invasions and the post-War situation was chaotic: democracy ended with a Yugoslav invasion in support of Zogu, a tribal leader who turned to Mussolini for aid and crowned himself King Zog I in 1928. Little more than a puppet state, Albania became an Italian protectorate in 1939. During WW2, Communist guerrillas fought back, establishing a Stalinist dictatorship under Enver Hoxha, which endured until his death in 1985. After extensive reform and a financial collapse causing temporary anarchy, the country is now an emergent democracy.
Subcategories
There are 12 subcategories to this category.
Articles in category "Albania"
There are 32 articles in this category.
AlbaniaA
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