Rulers & Dynasties

Albania, a small mountainous country of the western Balkans between Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Greece and the Adriatic and Ionian seas, has been inhabited since Palaeolithic hunters left their flint tools near Xarë about 40,000 years ago. Neolithic farmers settled at Vashtëmi about 6600 BCE and the Maliq culture flourished beside the lake of the Korçë basin, Bronze Age communities raised burial tumuli, and in the Iron Age the Illyrian peoples built hill-forts such as Gajtan above Shkodër. Greek colonists founded Epidamnos in 627 BCE, followed by Apollonia, Butrint and Oricum, the Illyrian kings Bardylis, Glaukias, Agron and Genthius and Queen Teuta ruled the interior and the northern coast, and Rome ended the Illyrian kingdom in 168 BCE, built the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachium and Apollonia and made the country part of its Balkan provinces.

The Byzantine town of Dyrrachium was fought over by Goths, Slavs, Bulgarians and Normans, the Albanoi are first named in 1043, and about 1190 Progon founded the Principality of Arbanon around Krujë. Charles of Anjou proclaimed a Kingdom of Albania in 1272, Stefan Dušan conquered the country in 1343–1346, and after his empire fell the Thopia, Balšić, Muzaka and Dukagjini ruled their own lands while Venice held Durrës and Shkodër. The Ottomans took the interior in the early 15th century, and in 1443 Gjergj Kastrioti, called Skanderbeg, seized Krujë and in 1444 united the Albanian lords in the League of Lezhë. For a quarter of a century he defeated Ottoman armies, and after his death in 1468 Krujë fell in 1478 and Shkodër in 1479.

For four centuries Albania was Ottoman. Most Albanians became Muslims, the Bektashi order spread, Albanian communities in Italy and Greece, the Arbëreshë and the Arvanites, preserved the old language abroad, the Bushati pashas of Shkodër and Ali Pasha of Yanina ruled almost independently in the late 18th century, and the towns of Berat and Gjirokastër grew rich. In the 19th century the Tanzimat revolts, the League of Prizren of 1878, the Frashëri brothers, the first Albanian schools and the Latin alphabet adopted at the Congress of Manastir in 1908 built the national movement, and on 28 November 1912 Ismail Qemali proclaimed independence at Vlorë. After the principality of Wilhelm of Wied and the First World War, the Congress of Lushnjë of 1920 made Tirana the capital, Fan Noli's revolution of 1924 was overthrown by Ahmet Zogu, and Zogu ruled as president and from 1928 as King Zog I until Italy invaded on 7 April 1939.

Occupied by Italy and then by Germany, Albania was liberated by its own partisans in November 1944, and Enver Hoxha built a Stalinist state that broke with Yugoslavia in 1948, with the Soviet Union in 1961 and with China in 1978, banned religion in 1967, covered the country with concrete bunkers and imprisoned tens of thousands before the students of December 1990 and the fall of Hoxha's statue in February 1991 ended one-party rule. Democratic Albania has lived through mass emigration, the collapse of the pyramid schemes in 1997, the Kosovo refugee crisis of 1999 and the earthquake of 2019; it joined NATO in 2009, became a candidate for the European Union in 2014 and opened accession negotiations in 2022. Its population is now about 2.4 million. Explore the ten ages below through selected events from the timeline.