According to a2zcamerablog, Albania is a country located in Europe. Albania is only slightly larger than Sicily, but despite this the variety of its territory is extraordinary both from a geographical point of view and from a historical and cultural point of view. Its traditions are centuries old, its natural beauty is still very unspoiled. Crossing it means encountering a bit of everything: typically Balkan landscapes, hills, lakes, woods, countryside full of olive trees, sandy beaches and Mediterranean vegetation; but also centers of great historical or archaeological interest, suggestive bazaars, ancient mosques. Places everywhere spectators of an intense human life, albeit marked by the wounds caused by dictatorial regimes and poverty. Located on the western side of the Balkan Peninsula, it is bathed by the lower Adriatic and the Otranto channel. The hinterland is mainly mountainous, crossed by short torrential rivers. The plains, which tend to be swampy at the river mouths, are found along the northern and central coastal strip, while the southern coasts are largely high and rocky. The current residents of Albania could descend from the first populations settled in the region, whose origin is prior to the Slavic invasions of the century.
VI-VII which affected most of the Balkan Peninsula; after all, today’s Albanians themselves consider themselves the direct successors of the ancients Albania could descend from the first populations settled in the region, whose origin is prior to the Slavic invasions of the century. VI-VII which affected most of the Balkan Peninsula; after all, today’s Albanians themselves consider themselves the direct successors of the ancients Albania could descend from the first populations settled in the region, whose origin is prior to the Slavic invasions of the century. VI-VII which affected most of the Balkan Peninsula; after all, today’s Albanians themselves consider themselves the direct successors of the ancients Illyrians, pre-Roman population. In Albania an agro-pastoral society closed to external influences and patriarchal characteristics has been maintained in the long term, which in the past has not allowed the formation of an urban bourgeoisie comparable to that of other European countries. On the political level, about four centuries. of Ottoman domination have produced a profound Islamization, today found mainly in the majority Muslim religion. Among the last European countries in the formation of a national conscience in the modern sense among the population, it achieved internationally recognized independence only in 1913, the day after the Balkan wars. In the following years, becoming a monarchy Republic under the self-proclaimed king Zog I, it entered the Italian sphere of influence until the loss of independence in favor of Italy in 1939. With the end of the Second World War, under the pressure of the anti-fascist resistance movement led by the Communists, the country was proclaimed the People’s Republic headed by Enver Hoxha, a dictator inspired by the Stalinist model. However, following the rupture of relations with the USSR in the 1960s and with China in the 1970s, the country became isolated from the rest of the world, inaugurating a period of xenophobic self-sufficiency which led to productive economic stagnation and, concomitantly, with the fall of the communist regimes in Europe, the collapse of institutions and a profound deconstruction of the social order. Unemployment and misery on the ashes of the old authoritarian and bureaucratic state have given way to the strengthening of the organized crime and a disorderly migration towards the economically advanced world; it was only after 2000 that attempts were made to contain these mass exoduses by means of agreements between the local government and the destination countries, including Italy in particular, which was fully affected by this phenomenon due to the proximity between the coasts of the two states. Since the beginning of the new century there has been an accelerated approach to the West which corresponds, internally, to an attenuation of the institutional instability that characterized Albania in the 1990s. Since 2009 it is part of the NATO; the same year he submitted the request for membership ‘ EU (currently has the status of official candidate).
The country is for the most part mountainous and occupies the wide and complex slope of the Dinaric system that overlooks the Adriatic Sea in correspondence with the Otranto channel. A series of elevated massifs form the natural boundary towards the E; in general they are large calcareous anticlines, among which some crystalline nuclei have emerged. From N to S the main mountain groups are those that make up the so-called Albanian Alps (maximum peak is Mount Jezercës, 2694 m) and those of Korab (2764 m) and Tomorit (2416 m). Deep valley furrows open up between the mountains, tending towards the Adriatic coast, but which have a tortuous course as the fracture lines have a contrasting direction with respect to the general direction of the Dinaric system, which has one of its orographic nodes in Albania. These valleys widen considerably towards the coast, where they have given rise, with their alluvial deposits, to a flat belt, once marshy and malarial, which forms a distinct section of the country (Lower Albania). The main valleys, which constitute as many axes of population, are those of the Drin, which opens in northern Albania and flows into the plain of Scutari, of the Mat and of the Semani in the central section, of the Voiussa in the southern one. They are crossed by the homonymous rivers, which represent the major Albanian watercourses, perennial but with a very irregular regime, with low summer and autumn and winter floods. The Drin originates from Lake Ohrid, which is only partially Albanian, as well as the nearby Prespa and Shkodra lakes, all of tectonic origin.
