"Tirana, the capital of Albania" a Tirana Travel Page by JLBG

With an estimated 700,000 inhabitants in 2000, Tirana is by far the largest city of Albania. It is the administrative, cultural, economic, and industrial center of the Republic of Albania. It stands mid distance between the areas where the Gueg is spoken, in the North and where the Tosk dialect is spoken in the south and does not belong to any of these areas. It is an intermediate between the Adriatic shore and the mountainous inland through the Qafa e K‘rab‘s valley and the Shkumbin river it is easily connected with the inner parts of the Balkan peninsula.

However, though the area around Tirana has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, for a long time, there has not been any city and unlike most Albanian cities, Tirana, the capital of the country is not an ancient city. There existed in the 1st century BC on the hill of Dajti a fortress called the castle of Tirkan. This is the origin of the name "Tirana".

Tirana was founded in 1614 by Sulejman Pasha Bargjini of Muleti who built a mosque, a hammam, a bakery, and several shops. Until it became the capital of the country in 1920, it remained a small town like any other ones. However, as it stands in a vast plain, that allows easy building. Under Italian influence, the city was really built as a capital between 1920 and 1930 with the huge Skanderbeg square and the impressive Bulevardi Dėshmorėt I Kombit, a perfect setting for grandiose parades, let them be fascist or communist.

This page has been built with photos taken in 1988 on the occasion of a visit to find both rare plants and flowers and wild birds and other animals. We have been in Shkodra on a day trip in summer 2005 and plan to make a week long tour of Albania in Summer 2006. I will then add new tips on my Tirana page (and other pages in Albania).