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| Albania | Plants and Animal | Back to Top |
During peak years, Albania had used fertilizers less than almost any other nation in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s the agricultural sector experienced a fertilizer shortage; supplies of pesticides and hybrid seed also ran low. In 1989 Albanian farmers had applied about 158 kilograms of active ingredients per hectare, but the country's economic breakdown pushed the total down to 135 kilograms in 1990 and 38 kilograms in 1991. A lack of hard currency caused fertilizer supplies to drop 80 percent and pesticide reserves to fall 63 percent. Ironically, intensive application of lindane and other pesticides as well as disinfectants for treating soil at seeding time, in combination with monocropping of wheat and corn, had destroyed many pests' natural enemies and increased dependency on pesticides. Although Albania's agricultural research institutes produced sufficient foundation seed, obsolete sorting and cleaning equipment lowered seed quality. Varietal improvement was dependent on the crossing of local strains. The breakup of collective farms, which produced most of the wheat and corn seed, forced farmers to seek new seed suppliers.
A botched campaign to collectivize livestock in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to a wholesale slaughter and chronic production shortfalls. When meat and dairy product shortages in the larger towns grew critical, Albania's communists retraced their steps. The regime gave animal husbandry a high priority in the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1986-90). In July 1990, the government decided to allow collective-farm members to raise cattle on their private plots and instructed the administrators of collective farms to transfer a portion of their stock animals to members. The government also recommended that collective farms in mountainous areas grant members 0.2 hectares of land each, in addition to their private plots, in order to increase livestock production. In mid-1991, shortages of feed severely hampered livestock production and forced farmers to allocate much of their land to cultivation of forage and feed corn. The animals raised on this diet were deficient in protein and generally of poor quality. Despite the ban on food exports, herdsmen were reportedly smuggling about 1,000 head of calves, cows, sheep, and other livestock across the Greek and Yugoslav borders each day because they lacked fodder and sought to take advantage of high prices on foreign markets. An additional challenge to Albanian stockmen was a serious shortage of artificial-insemination and other veterinary services.
Albania's 409,528 hectares of pastureland remained state-owned despite the land reform, and in the chaos of 1991 the government set to work on a new law to reassert state control of pasturelands and give managers new guidelines. The Ministry of Agriculture's eighteen pasture enterprises managed grazing lands at the district level and charged customers, including private herdsmen and farmers, a seasonal fee. Price liberalization did not boost grazing fees even though the enterprises were operating at a loss in 1991. Ministry officials estimated that grazing fees could have to increase fourfold before the pasture enterprises could break even. Western economists projected that pressure on Albania's pasturelands would increase as livestock herds grew and as expanding communities sought land for residential and recreational purposes.
| Albania | Communications | Back to Top |
Albania has the poorest telephone service in Europe with fewer than two telephones per 100 inhabitants; it is doubtful that every village has telephone service domestic: obsolete wire system; no longer provides a telephone for every village; in 1992, following the fall of the communist government, peasants cut the wire to about 1,000 villages and used it to build fences international: inadequate; international traffic carried by microwave radio relay from the Tirana exchange to Italy and Greece
| Albania | Culture | Back to Top |
The social structure of the country was, until the 1930s, basically tribal in the north and semifeudal in the central and southern regions. The highlanders of the north retained their medieval pattern of life until well into the twentieth century and were considered the last people in Europe to preserve tribal autonomy. In the central and southern regions, increasing contact with the outside world and invasions and occupations by foreign armies had gradually weakened tribal society.
Traditionally there have been two major subcultures in the Albanian nation: the Gegs in the north and the Tosks in the south. The Gegs, partly Roman Catholic but mostly Muslim, lived until after World War II in a mountain society characterized by blood feuds and fierce clan and tribal loyalties. The Tosks, whose number included many Muslims as well as Orthodox Christians, were less culturally isolated mainly because of centuries of foreign influence. Because they had came under the rule of the Muslim landed aristocracy, the Tosks had apparently largely lost the spirit of individuality and independence that for centuries characterized the Gegs, especially in the highlands.
Until the end of World War II, society in the north and, to a much lesser extent, in the south, was organized in terms of kinship and descent. The basic unit of society was the extended family, usually composed of a couple, their married sons, the wives and children of the sons, and any unmarried daughters. The extended family formed a single residential and economic entity held together by common ownership of means of production and common interest in the defense of the group. Such families often included scores of persons, and, as late as 1944, some encompassed as many as sixty to seventy persons living in a cluster of huts surrounding the father's house.
Extended families were grouped into clans whose chiefs preserved patriarchal powers over the entire group. The clan chief arranged marriages, assigned tasks, settled disputes, and set the course to be followed concerning essential matters such as blood feuds and politics. Descent was traced from a common ancestor through the male line, and brides usually were chosen from outside the clan. Clans in turn were grouped into tribes.
In the Tosk regions of the south, the extended family was also the most important social unit, although patriarchal authority had been diluted by the feudal conditions usually imposed by the Muslim bey.
Social leadership in the lowlands was concentrated in the hands of the semifeudal local tribal bey and pasha. The region around Tiranė, for example, was controlled by the Zogolli, Toptani, and Vrioni families, all Muslims and all owners of extensive agricultural estates. Ahmed Zogu, subsequently King Zog I, was from the Zogolli family. Originally pashas ranked slightly higher than beys, but differences gradually diminished and just the term bey remained is use. In the northern highlands, the bajraktars was the counterpart of the bey and enjoyed similar hereditary rights to titles and positions.
The Geg clans put great importance on marriage traditions. According to custom, a young man always married a young woman from outside his clan but from within his tribe. In some tribes, marriages between Christians and Muslims were tolerated, but as a rule such unions were frowned upon.
A variety of offenses against women could spark blood feuds. Many females were engaged to marry in their infancy by their parents. If later a woman did not wish to marry the man whom the parents had chosen for her and married another, in all likelihood a blood feud would ensue. Among the Tosks, religious beliefs and customs were more important than clan and tribal traditions in the regulation of marriage.
For centuries, the family was the basic unit of the country's social structure. To a great extent, the privacy of the family supplanted that of the state. Children were brought up to respect their elders and, above all, their father, whose word was law within the confines of his family.
Upon the death of the father, family authority devolved upon his oldest son. The females of the household occupied an inferior position; they were confined at home, treated like servants, and not allowed to eat at the same table with the men. When the time came for sons to set up their own households, all parental property was distributed equally among them. Females owned no property and did not have the right to seek divorce. In northern Albania, the ancient Code of Lek permitted the husband "to beat his wife and to bind her in chains if she defies his words and orders."
Geographical conditions affected Tosk social organization. Southern Albania's accessibility led to its coming much more firmly under Ottoman control. In turn, the Ottoman Empire's rule resulted in the breakup of the large, independent, family landholdings and their replacement by extensive estates owned by powerful Muslims, each with his own retinue, fortresses, and large cohort of tenant peasants to work his lands. These landowners' allegiance to the sultans was secured by the granting of administrative positions either at home or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.
The consolidation of the large estates was a continuous process. Landowning beys would entrap peasants into their debt and thus establish themselves as semifeudal patrons of formerly independent villagers. In this way, a large Muslim aristocracy developed in the south, while the majority of the Tosk peasants assumed the characteristics of an oppressed social class. As late as the 1930s, two-thirds of the best land in central and southern Albania belonged to large landowners.
The tribal society of the Geg highlanders contrasted sharply with that of the passive, oppressed Tosk peasantry, most of whose members lived on the large estates of the beys and were often represented in the political arena by the beys themselves. This semifeudal society survived in the south well into the twentieth century. After independence was achieved in 1912, however, a small Tosk middle class began to develop, which, in the early 1920s, finding common interests with the more enlightened beys, played a major role in attempts to create a modern society. But in 1925 Ahmet Zogu curbed Tosk influence and cemented his power in the tribal north by governing through influential tribal and clan chiefs. To secure the loyalty of these chiefs, he placed them on the government payroll and sent several back to their tribes with the military rank of colonel. In 1928 a new constitution declared Albania a kingdom and Zogu the monarch. King Zog I ruled until the Italian invasion in 1939.
| Albania | Defence | Back to Top |
Military branches: Army, Navy, Air and Air Defense Forces, Interior Ministry Troops, Border Guards
Military manpower - military age: 19 years of age
Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 870,768 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 712,763 (2001 est.)
Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 35,792 (2001 est.)
| Albania | International Disputes | Back to Top |
Albanian Government supports protection of the rights of ethnic Albanians outside of its borders but has downplayed them to further its primary foreign policy goal of regional cooperation; Albanian majority in Kosovo seeks independence from Yugoslavia; Albanians in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia claim discrimination in education, access to public-sector jobs, and representation in government.
| Albania | Economy | Back to Top |
Albania emerged from the Communist era as the poorest country in Europe. Under the Communists, the state controlled all economic activities; private ownership and private enterprise were forbidden. Because the state tended to invest in heavy industry, the popular demand for consumer goods was neglected. Furthermore, the constitution did not allow other countries to invest in or aid Albania. On the other hand, there was little unemployment since the state guaranteed almost everyone a job. In the early 1990s Albanias new, democratically elected leaders started a far-reaching program to reform Albanias economy. Many state businesses were privatized, key decisions about production and demand were taken away from the state, and restrictions on trade and foreign investment were lifted. At first, between 1989 and 1992, the disruption brought by the end of the Communist era and the start of market reforms led to a steep economic decline with soaring unemployment and widespread poverty. However, in 1993 Albanias gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 11 percent; in 1994 by 7 percent; and in 1995 by 6 percentthe highest growth in Europe. From 1992 to 1995 inflation dropped from a yearly average of 226 percent to 7 percent, and by 1995 the state controlled only 40 percent of the total economy. The rapid growth was due mainly to a recovery in farming spurred by rapid privatization and land reforms. In 1999 the GDP was $3.68 billion, or about $1,090 a person.
Before 1991, the ruling communist party directed the country's entire economy through a series of five-year plans. All means of production were under state control, agriculture was fully collectivized and industry nationalized, and private enterprise was strictly forbidden. In addition a provision of the constitution prohibited the government from seeking foreign aid, accepting loans, or allowing foreign investments. The failure of this command economy has forced the government to decentralize the economic decision-making process. Restrictions on private trade have been lifted, and the government now accepts foreign credits and investments and seeks to create joint ventures with foreign partners. Such measures are intended to encourage the growth of light industries, food processing, and agriculture, but they are hampered by chronic shortages of basic foods, a failing infrastructure, a lack of raw materials, shortages of skilled workers and managers, low productivity, and poor labour discipline. Albania remains Europe's poorest country.
Poor by European standards, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more open-market economy. The economy rebounded in 1993-95 after a severe depression accompanying the end of the previous centrally planned system in 1990 and 1991. However, a weakening of government resolve to maintain stabilization policies in the election year of 1996 contributed to renewal of inflationary pressures, spurred by the budget deficit which exceeded 12% of GDP. The collapse of financial pyramid schemes in early 1997 - which had attracted deposits from a substantial portion of Albania's population - triggered severe social unrest which led to more than 1,500 deaths, widespread destruction of property, and a 7% drop in GDP. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to revive economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered by remittances from some 20% of the labor force that works abroad, mostly in Greece and Italy. These remittances supplement GDP and help offset the large foreign trade deficit. Most agricultural land was privatized in 1992, substantially improving peasant incomes. In 1998, Albania recovered the 7% drop in GDP of 1997 and pushed ahead by 8% in 1999 and by 7.5% in 2000. International aid helped defray the high costs of receiving and returning refugees from the Kosovo conflict. Privatization scored some successes in 2000, but other reforms lagged.
| Albania | Education | Back to Top |
As late as 1946, about 85 percent of the people were illiterate, principally because schools using the Albanian language had been practically nonexistent in the country before it became independent in 1912. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman rulers had prohibited use of the Albanian language in schools. Turkish was spoken in the few schools that served the Muslim population. These institutions were located mainly in cities and large towns. The schools for Orthodox Christian children were under the supervision of the Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchate. The teachers at these schools usually were recruited from the Orthodox clergy, and the language of instruction was Greek. The first school known to use Albanian in modern times was in a Franciscan seminary that opened in 1861 in Shkodėr.
From about 1880 to 1910, several Albanian patriots intent on creating a sense of national consciousness founded elementary schools in a few cities and towns, mostly in the south, but these institutions were closed by the Ottoman authorities. The advent of the Young Turks movement in 1908 motivated the Albanian patriots to intensify their efforts, and in the same year a group of intellectuals met in Monastir to choose an Albanian alphabet. Books written in Albanian before 1908 had used a mixture of alphabets, consisting mostly of combinations of Latin, Greek, and Turkish-Arabic letters.
The participants in the Monastir meeting developed a unified alphabet based on Latin letters. A number of textbooks soon were written in the new alphabet, and Albanian elementary schools opened in various parts of the country. In 1909, to meet the demand for teachers able to teach in the native tongue, a normal school was established in Elbasan. But in 1910, the Young Turks, fearing the emergence of Albanian nationalism, closed all schools that used Albanian as the language of instruction.
Even after Albania became independent, schools were scarce. The unsettled political conditions caused by the Balkan wars and by World War I hindered the development of a unified education system. The foreign occupying powers, however, opened some schools in their respective areas of control, each power offering instruction in its own language. A few of these schools, especially the Italian and French ones, continued to function after World War I and played a significant role in introducing Western educational methods and principles. Particularly important was the National Lycée of Korēė, in which the language of instruction was French.
Soon after the establishment of a national government in 1920, which included a ministry of education, the foundation was laid for a national education system. Elementary schools were opened in the cities and some of the larger towns, and the Italian and French schools that had opened during World War I were strengthened. In the meantime, two important American schools were founded--the American Vocational School in Tiranė, established by the American Junior Red Cross in 1921, and the American Agricultural School in Kavajė, sponsored by the Near East Foundation. Several future communist party and government luminaries were educated in the foreign schools: Enver Hoxha graduated from the National Lycée in 1930, and Mehmet Shehu, who would become prime minister, completed studies at the American Vocational School in 1932.
In the 1920s, the period when the foundations of the modern Albanian state were laid, considerable progress was made toward development of a genuinely Albanian education system. In 1933 the Royal Constitution was amended to make the education of citizens an exclusive right of the state. All foreign-language schools, except the American Agricultural School, were either closed or nationalized. This move was intended to stop the rapid spread of schools sponsored directly by the Italian government, especially among Roman Catholics in the north.
The nationalization of schools was followed in 1934 by a farreaching reorganization of the entire education system. The new system called for compulsory elementary education from the ages of four to fourteen. It also provided for the expansion of secondary schools of various kinds; the establishment of new technical, vocational, and commercial secondary schools; and the acceleration and expansion of teacher training. The obligatory provisions of the 1934 reorganization law were never enforced in rural areas because the peasants needed their children to work in the fields, and because of a lack of schoolhouses, teachers, and means of transportation.
The only minority schools operating in Albania before World War II were those for the Greek minority living in the district of Gjirokastėr. These schools too were closed by the constitutional amendment of 1933, but Greece referred the case to the International Permanent Court of Justice, which forced Albania to reopen them.
Pre-World War II Albania had no university-level education and all advanced studies were pursued abroad. Every year the state granted a limited number of scholarships to deserving high school graduates, who otherwise could not afford to continue their education. But the largest number of university students came from well-to-do families and thus were privately financed. The great majority of the students attended Italian universities because of their proximity and because of the special relationship between the Rome and Tiranė governments. The Italian government itself, following a policy of political, economic, military, and cultural penetration of the country, granted a number of scholarships to Albanian students recommended by its legation in Tiranė.
Soon after the Italians occupied Albania in April 1939, the education system came under complete Italian control. Use of the Italian language was made compulsory in all secondary schools, and the fascist ideology and orientation were incorporated into the curricula. After 1941, however, when guerilla groups began to operate against the Italian forces, the whole education system became paralyzed. Secondary schools became centers of resistance and guerrilla recruitment, and many teachers and students went to the mountains to join resistance groups. By September 1943, when Italy capitulated to the Allies and German troops invaded and occupied Albania, education had come to a complete standstill.
Illiteracy in Albania, which had long been widespread, was dramatically lowered by the Communists; in 2001 the literacy rate had climbed to 98 percent of the adult population. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 14. In 1996 nearly all school-age children attended primary school, but only 35 percent attended secondary school. Several universities, including the University of Tirana (founded in 1957), operate in Albania. The Communists encouraged education for women, and today enrollment rates for girls are roughly equal to those for boys in all levels of schooling. Under Communist rule, education was also used to indoctrinate students with Communist beliefs. Before entering college, students were required to work for one year; after finishing their studies, another year of work and military training was required. After Communism collapsed, reforms removed politics and ideology from schools, although schools continue to receive large subsidies from the state. Work and military requirements were also dropped.
| Albania | Government | Back to Top |
Political Parties: Albanian Party of Labor (APL), the communist party, became the Socialist Party of Albania in 1991. Other parties allowed to form December 1990, resulting in Albanian Democratic Party, Republican Party, Ecology Party, OMONIA (Unity--Greek minority party).
Government: Until April 1991 single-chamber People's Assembly with 250 deputies met only a few days each year; decisions made by the Presidium of the People's Assembly whose president is head of state, and Council of Ministers; from April 1991, interim constitution provided for president who could not hold other offices concurrently; People's Assembly with at least 140 members was the legislative, Council of Ministers was top executive organ.
Ministries: As of November 1992: agriculture and food; culture, youth and sport; defense; education; finances and economy; foreign affairs; foreign economic trade relations; health and environmental protection; industry, mining, and energy resources; justice; labor, emigration, social welfare, and the politically persecuted; public order; tourism; and transport and communication.
Administrative Divisions: Country is divided into twenty-six districts each under a People's Council elected every three years.
Judicial System: Supreme Court, elected by People's Assembly, also district and regional courts.
Flag: Black, two-headed eagle centered on a red field.
| Albania | History | Back to Top |
"The Albanian people have hacked their way through history, sword in hand," proclaims the preamble to Albania's 1976 Stalinist constitution. These words were penned by the most dominant figure in Albania's modern history, the Orwellian postwar despot, Enver Hoxha. The fact that Hoxha enshrined them in Albania's supreme law is indicative of how he--like his mentor, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin--exploited his people's collective memory to enhance the might of the communist system, which he manipulated for over four decades. Supported by a group of sycophantic intellectuals, Hoxha repeateded transformed friends into hated foes in his determination to shape events. Similarly, he rewrote Albania's history so national heroes were recast, sometimes overnight, as villains. Hoxha appealed to the Albanians' xenophobia and their defensive nationalism to parry criticism and threats to communist central control and his regime and justify its brutal, arbitrary rule and economic and social folly. Only Hoxha's death, the timely downfall of communism in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, and the collapse of the nation's economy were enough to break his spell and propel Albania fitfully toward change.
The Albanians are probably an ethnic outcropping of the Illyrians, an ancient Balkan people who intermingled and made war with the Greeks, Thracians, and Macedonians before succumbing to Roman rule around the time of Christ. Eastern and Western powers, secular and religious, battled for centuries after the fall of Rome to control the lands that constitute modern-day Albania. All the Illyrian tribes except the Albanians disappeared during the Dark Ages under the waves of migrating barbarians. A forbidding mountain homeland and resilient tribal society enabled the Albanians to survive into modern times with their identity their Indo-European language intact.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Ottoman Turks swept into the western Balkans. After a quixotic defense mounted by the Albanians' greatest hero, Skanderbeg, the Albanians succumbed to the Turkish sultan's forces. During five centuries of Ottoman rule, about two-thirds of the Albanian population, including its most powerful feudal landowners, converted to Islam. Many Albanians won fame and fortune as soldiers, administrators, and merchants in far-flung parts of the empire. As the centuries passed, however, Ottoman rulers lost the capacity to command the loyalty of local pashas, who governed districts on the empire's fringes. Soon pressures created by emerging national movements among the empire's farrago of peoples threatened to shatter the empire itself. The Ottoman rulers of the nineteenth century struggled in vain to shore up central authority, introducing reforms aimed at harnessing unruly pashas and checking the spread of nationalist ideas.
Albanian nationalism stirred for the first time in the late nineteenth century when it appeared that Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece would snatch up the Ottoman Empire's Albanian-populated lands. In 1878 Albanian leaders organized the Prizren League, which pressed for autonomy within the empire. After decades of unrest and the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the First Balkan War in 1912-13, Albanian leaders declared Albania an independent state, and Europe's Great Powers carved out an independent Albania after the Second Balkan War of 1913.
With the complete collapse of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I, the Albanians looked to Italy for protection against predators. After 1925, however, Mussolini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928 Albania became a kingdom under Zog I, the conservative Muslim clan chief and former prime minister, but Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in Albanian internal affairs. In 1939 Mussolini's troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, and annexed the country. Albanian communists and nationalists fought each other as well as the occupying Italian and German forces during World War II, and with Yugoslav and Allied assistance the communists triumphed.
After the war, communist strongmen Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu eliminated their rivals inside the communist party and liquidated anticommunist opposition. Concentrating primarily on maintaining their grip on power, they reorganized the country's economy along strict Stalinist lines, turning first to Yugoslavia, then to the Soviet Union, and later to China for support. In pursuit of their goals, the communists repressed the Albanian people, subjecting them to isolation, propaganda, and brutal police measures. When China opened up to the West in the 1970s, Albania's rulers turned away from Beijing and implemented a policy of strict autarky, or self-sufficiency, that brought their nation economic ruin.
| Albania | Introduction | Back to Top |
Officially Republic of Albania, republic, south-eastern Europe, located in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula; bounded on the north-west and north by Serbia and Montenegro, on the east by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), on the south-east and south by Greece, and on the west by the Adriatic Sea. Albania, one of the smallest countries of Europe, has a maximum length from north to south of about 345 km (214 mi) and a maximum width of about 145 km (90 mi). Its total area is 28,748 sq km (11,100 sq mi). Tirana is the capital and largest city of Albania.
Official Name- Republic of Albania| Albania | Land | Back to Top |
In 1991 cultivable land in Albania amounted to about 714,000 hectares, about 25 percent of the country's total area. Arable land and permanent croplands totaled about 590,000 hectares and 124,000 hectares, respectively; permanent pasturelands accounted for another 409,528 hectares. More than 100,000 hectares of the cultivable land had a slope greater than 30 percent and was allocated almost entirely to permanent tree crops, such as olives. Forests and woodlands covered more than 1 million hectares, or 38 percent of the total land area. The soils of the coastal plain and eastern plateau were fertile, but acidic soils were predominant in the 200,000 hectares of cropland in hilly and mountainous areas.
Irrigation and desalination projects, terracing of highlands, and drainage of marshes, often carried out by forced labor, added considerably to the country's cultivable land after 1945. Large population increases, however, reduced the amount of cultivable land per capita by 35 percent between 1950 and 1987 and by 20 percent between 1980 and 1988. About 423,000 hectares were irrigated in 1991, up from about 39,300 hectares in 1950. The economic disruptions of the early 1990s, however, left only about 40 percent of the country's irrigation system functional and 20 percent in complete disrepair. Albania also invested substantially in imported Dutch greenhouses during its drive for food self-sufficiency.
| Albania | Languages | Back to Top |
The official language of Albania is Albanian. Because Albanian evolved from the extinct Illyrian language, it is the only modern representative of a distinct branch of the Indo-European language family. Tosks and Ghegs speak different dialects of Albanian, but both groups can understand each other. Tosk became the official standard dialect under the Communists and remains so today.
| Albania | Legal | Back to Top |
Legal system: has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal and compulsory Executive branch: chief of state: President of the Republic Rexhep MEIDANI (since 24 July 1997) head of government: Prime Minister Ilir META (since 29 October 1999) cabinet: Council of Ministers nominated by the prime minister and approved by the president elections: president elected by the People's Assembly for a five-year term; election last held 24 July 1997 (next to be held NA 2002); prime minister appointed by the president election results: Rexhep MEIDANI elected president; People's Assembly vote by number - total votes 122, for 110, against 3, abstained 2, invalid 7 Legislative branch: unicameral People's Assembly or Kuvendi Popullor (155 seats; most members are elected by direct popular vote and some by proportional vote for four-year terms) elections: last held 29 June 1997 (next held 24 June 2001, 2nd round 8 July 2001) election results: percent of vote by party - PS 53.36%, PD 25.33%, PSD 2.5%, PBDNJ 2.78%, PBK 2.36%, PAD 2.85%, PR 2.25%, PLL 3.09%, PDK 1.00%, PBSD 0.84%; seats by party - PS 101, PD 27, PSD 8, PBDNJ 4, PBK 3, PAD 2, PR 2, PLL 2, PDK 1, PBSD 1, PUK 1, independents 3 Judicial branch: Supreme Court (chairman is elected by the People's Assembly for a four-year term)
| Albania | Life | Back to Top |
Until the 1990s, Albania's working people played practically no meaningful decision-making role in the country's economic life. Most workers simply followed orders and scrambled to find necessities in the country's poorly stocked stores. Personal initiative too often either went unrewarded or was considered ideologically unsound and therefore hazardous to personal safety. The regime denied the existence of unemployment in Albania but kept thousands of redundant workers and managers on factory and government payrolls and dispatched young people entering the work force to labor manually on collective farms or elsewhere in the economy.
The collapsing economic system left most Albanians effectively jobless. Despair, fear of political repression, and television-fed expectations of an easy life in the West triggered waves of emigration to Europe's established free-market democracies, in particular Greece and Italy. The craving to leave Albania in search of work was so strong that in August 1991, long after the arrival of international food aid, tens of thousands of people converged on Durrės after rumors spread through the nearby countryside that a ship would take passengers from that port to Italy.
| Albania | organization | Back to Top |
ACCT (associate), BSEC, CCC, CE, CEI, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat (nonsignatory user), Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO (correspondent), ITU, OIC, OPCW, OSCE, PFP, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNOMIG, UPU, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO
| Albania | People | Back to Top |
The average annual growth rate of the Albanian population for the period 1960-90 was 2.4 percent, or approximately three to four times higher than that of other European countries. Population growth was actively encouraged by the government, which deemed it "essential for the further strengthening and prosperity of socialist society." Albania had a population of 3,335,000 in July 1991, compared with 2,761,000 in mid-1981 and 1,626,000 in 1960. The most sparsely populated Balkan country until 1965, Albania attained a population density of 111 inhabitants per square kilometer in 1989--the highest in the Balkans. The 1991 growth rate was 1.8 percent.
In 1991 Albania had a birth rate of 24 per 1,000, and its death rate had declined from 14 per 1,000 in 1950 to 5 per 1,000. A concomitant of the reduced death rate was an increase in life expectancy. Official Albanian sources indicated that average life expectancy at birth increased from fifty-three years in 1950 to seventy-two years for males and seventy-nine years for females in 1991. The population was among the most youthful in Europe, with an average age of twenty-seven years, and the fertility rate--2.9 children born per woman--was one of Europe's highest.
Albania was the only country in Europe with more males than females. The disparity in the male-to-female ratio, which was 1,055:1,000 in 1970, had increased to the point where males accounted for 51.5 percent of the population in 1990, This discrepancy was attributed in part to a higher mortality rate among female infants, caused by neglect and the traditional deference accorded male progeny. Losses in World War II, estimated by the United Nations at 30,000 persons, or 2.5 percent of the population, apparently had little influence on the ratio of males to females.
In 2001 Albanias population estimate was 3,510,484, resulting in an average density of 122 persons per sq km (316 per sq mi). More and more people have left rural areas for urban ones, particularly in the northern districts, such that in 1999 some 39 percent of the population lived in urban areas, compared to one-fifth in 1950. Albania has had one of the highest birth rates in Europe since the end of World War II (1939-1945) while the death rate has been one of the continents lowest. A high rate of population growth was state policy under the Communist regime, which viewed it as essential to Albanias strength and prosperity.
There are an estimated seven million ethnic Albanians in the world, but fewer than half of them live within the boundaries of the Albanian state. The largest concentrations of Albanian-speaking people outside Albania are in the portions of Yugoslavia and Macedonia bordering the country; notable is the Kosovo region, where Albanians constitute a majority population. There are also large Albanian communities in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania. Since the 1970s, many Albanians have emigrated to western Europe and the United States. No country in Europe has a more homogeneous population than Albania, where non-Albanians account for only 2 percent of the total population. Greeks, concentrated mainly in the southeast, and Slavs, almost all of them Macedonians, constitute the largest minorities.
| Albania | Politics | Back to Top |
Albanian National Front (Balli Kombetar) or PBK [Abaz ERMENJI]; Albanian Republican Party or PR [Fatmir MEDIU]; Albanian Socialist Party or PS (formerly the Albania Workers Party) [Fatos NANO, chairman]; Christian Democratic Party or PDK [Zef BUSHATI]; Democratic Alliance or PAD [Neritan CEKA]; Democratic Party or PD [Sali BERISHA]; Group of Reformist Democrats [Leonard NDOKA]; Liberal Union Party [Teodor LACO]; note - Teodor LACO of the Liberal Union Party was leader of the Social Democratic Union of Albania or PBSD; Movement of Legality Party or PLL [Nderim KUPI]; OMONIA [Vagjelis DULES]; Party of National Unity or PUK [Idajet BEQUIRI]; Social Democratic Party or PSD [Skender GJINUSHI]; Unity for Human Rights Party or PBDNJ [Vasil MELO, chairman]
| Albania | Provinces | Back to Top |
36 districts (rrethe, singular - rreth) and 1 municipality* (bashki); Berat, Bulqize, Delvine, Devoll (Bilisht), Diber (Peshkopi), Durres, Elbasan, Fier, Gjirokaster, Gramsh, Has (Krume), Kavaje, Kolonje (Erseke), Korce, Kruje, Kucove, Kukes, Kurbin, Lezhe, Librazhd, Lushnje, Malesi e Madhe (Koplik), Mallakaster (Ballsh), Mat (Burrel), Mirdite (Rreshen), Peqin, Permet, Pogradec, Puke, Sarande, Shkoder, Skrapar (Corovode), Tepelene, Tirane (Tirana), Tirane* (Tirana), Tropoje (Bajram Curri), Vlore
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