You know how in high school there's always like that one
little emo kid that just kind of
keeps to themselves and sits in the corner?
But then about 10 years later
at the reunion you find out
they actually have a lot of friends
and they're pretty cool.
That's kind of like what Albania is.
It's time to learn geography, NOW!
Now you know the drill, before anything
let's dissect that flag!
As you can see, the Albanian flag
is actually pretty simple.
It's just a red banner,
with a double-headed eagle emblem on top of it.
The red representing bravery and courage,
and the double-headed eagle is an emblem that the
Albanians have claimed that they have historically used
to identify themselves as a people group,
even though there may be some other countries that would argue.
In terms of its political geography
Albania is located in the south Balkan region,
right north of Greece, south of Montenegro,
east of Macedonia and Kosovo.
(Even though Serbia will tell you that Kosovo is totally
not Kosovo and it's just part of Serbia.
But we'll discuss that in another video...)
And off the coast of the Ionian and Adriatic Seas.
Now when it comes to Albania's borders
it almost kind of looks like every single country
surrounding Albania is trying to take as much coastline
away as they can from Albania.
In the south, Greece is like, "Eh, I'm just gonna take
these extra 10 miles of beach."
In the north, Montenegro is like, "Eh, I'm just gonna take
the entire Bojana River."
And even inland, Macedonia is like, "Eh, I'm just gonna
take the majority of the Prespa and Ohrid Lakes.
And access to those lakes."
Albania doesn't really get much regard.
Now unlike many of its neighbors that border the
Mediterranean, Albania doesn't really have many islands
that border its coastline.
In fact there are only about 7 to 10 -ish
islands. Most of which are small, uninhabited
or barely inhabited. Like Tongo and Stillo Island in the south.
Which each only have 1 house on them.
And most of the other ones are basically barely even the
size of an Ikea.
However, a lot of them do have a lot of cool historical
ancient sites and landmarks on them.
Such as, Ali Pasha Castle on Butrint,
and the 13th century monastery on
Zvërnec Island.
Except for one!
Sazan Island.
Sazan Island has actually played a very crucial role in
Albania's history.
It was taken over by the Romans, and then the Byzantines,
and the Ottomans, and the Greeks
and the Italians, and the British.
And the Greeks, but the Greeks didn't want it again,
so they gave it to the Italians.
And then the Italians finally gave it to Albania.
It's a long story...
To this day Sazan Island is the only somewhat inhabited
island, as the people living there are only there
to maintain the former military bases that were built.
In terms of its Physical Geography,
Albania is about 70% mountainous,
with about 25% of the land being
arable for agriculture and farming.
Which by the way, is a sector that employs about half of
the entire population of Albania.
Albanian's take their agriculture very seriously.
In fact, for a while, they were completely closed off from
the rest of the world and self-reliant.
In addition to fruits and vegetables and other produce,
one thing that Albanian's really like to grow.
Tobacco.
They, they do, I, they, they, they just do.
Now Albania is also loaded with a bunch of other types
of landscapes, like rolling green hills,
and lush forests, and very nice warm temperate
beaches.
Such as the ones at Ksamil and Durrës.
Speaking of which,
interesting factoid, if you go to Albania,
Pretty much everywhere around the entire country,
you'll notice these Word War II concrete war bunkers,
located everywhere.
The reason being because in the middle of the
20th century, the old communist leader,
Enver Hoxha,
took over and built these
war bunkers. About 700,000
of them and placed them all over the country,
as a means for militaristic preparation.
Now of course, that costed the country a lot of money
that they pretty much didn't have and it was a poor investment
because they never really needed them.
However to this day, it's almost like a little I Spy game.
When you're in Albania, see how many bunkers you can find.
Now in terms of its demographics,
about 85%, the vast majority of
people in Albania, identify as ethnically Albanian.
Now there are some minorities, like Greeks
and Macedonians and Montenegrans as well.
The vast majority of people in Albania also speak the
Albanian language, which is one of the most
distinguishable facets of this country.
The Albanian language, to this day, relates to no other
Indo-European language branch in the world.
It stands alone as its own; and it's a very unique language
Albania also has a very interesting faith-based backround.
About 60% of the people identify as
non-denominational or secular Muslim,
and about 20% identify as Christian,
mostly Catholic or Orthodox.
Although historically, Albania at one point
banned all religious freedom.
And was declared the very first Atheist state in the
entire world.
During the Communist regime, until 1992.
Interesting sidenote!
In Albania, they shake their head to say yes,
and they nod their head to say no.
The Friend Zone!
This is where things get a little interesting because
historically, Albania has probably been one the most
socially awkward countries in the world.
Shortly after Albania was relinquished from the Ottoman Empire,
Albania kind of went through a few decades of
not exactly, quite knowing how to be Albania again.
And that's when the Soviets came in.
For a while, Albania was part of the Soviet Bloc.
However, during the Sino-Soviet split,
(Which is something we will discuss all that drama in another video.)
Albania actually decided to side with China,
and not Russia, which, strategically,
may have been a bad decision.
The reason being, because that made China
Albania's only ally in the world.
And it can get kind of hard when your only ally in the
world isn't even close to you, geographically.
And to add on top of that, in the 70s,
China was kind of like, "Look, Albania, it was cute how
you wanted to tag along, but, you're on your own."
And then, Albania had no allies.
In the last few years of Communism, and following the
death of Enver Hoxha.
Albania kind of saw what was going on and they were like,
"Yeah, we kind of need to turn things around."
And finally in 1990, the Communism regime ended
making Albania a constitutional republic.
This opened up a lot of doors.
And from the 90's up until today,
Albania has become one of the most social countries
in the world, opening up its arms, trying to regain
as many diplomatic relations as it can with as many
countries. And to this day, has about 40
embassies in 40 different countries.
Albania is not a social butterfly.
Albania is a social pterodactyl.
They even named a street after George W. Bush
after he visited there one time in 2007.
Interesting sidenote, there's an early episode of the
Simpsons, in which Bart signs up for a foreign exchange
student program and goes to France, where as the
Simpson family receives an exchange student, named
Adil, from Albania.
The episode was filmed in 1990,
right before the fall of Communism in Albania.
And lightly portrays the tensions between Americans
and Soviet influenced nations, back in that time.
In terms of its best friend,
Albania would probably consider Kosovo their
best friend, considering that the vast majority of people
in Kosovo are Albanians.
Gotta support your brothers!
In conclusion, Albania may have been that little,
reserved, quiet kid, and, yeah, maybe they made a few
bad decisions here and there historically.
But, they really started to turn things around
and you gotta give that for them.
Stay tuned! Algeria is coming up next!