ABSTRACT
East and Greece in the South. The Adriatic and Ionic Seas border Albania to the West and Southwest. The country covers an area of 11,100 square miles (28,748 square km), of which 24% arable, 15% meadow and pastures, 36% forest. It has a maximum length (North-South) of about 210 miles (340 km) and a maximum width of about 153 km. The population is 3.28 million and the main towns are Tirana, which is the capital city, with 250,000 inhabitants, Durres (125,000), Elbasan (101,000), Vlore (88,000) and Shkoder (81,000). Till the 1980s Albania was one of the fastest growing countries in Europe, with an average annual growth rate of 2.1%. Successively the population decreased because of a drastic reduction of the birth rate primarily due to the situation of economic uncertainty. For the same reason, the number of Albanian emigrant workers increased from 110,000 in 1991 to 428,000 in 1996. The population is ethnically homogeneous. The largest minority are Greeks; there is also population of Vlachs and significant numbers of Roma and Slav Macedonians. Outside the country some ethnic Albanians live in Yugoslavia; a consistent number of historic settlements of Albanians can be found also in Greece (the Cams) and in Italy (the Arboresh).
