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Albanian ( or shqip ) is a unique Indo-European language spoken by nearly 10 million people,Gheg 2,779,246 + Tosk 2,980,000 + Arbereshe 80,000 + Arvanitika 150,000 = 5,989,246. (Ethnologue, 2005)Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/. primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, Montenegro, and southern Serbia. Albanian is also spoken by native communities in Greece, along the eastern coast of southern Italy, and on the island of Sicily. Additionally, speakers of Albanian can be found elsewhere throughout the latter two countries resulting from a modern diaspora, originating from the Balkans, that also includes Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. An estimated 3 million Albanians are believed to be the total of the diaspora concentrated mostly in Western Europe and North America.

: This article is about the country in southern Europe. For a topic outline on this subject, see List of basic Albania topics. For other uses, see Albania (disambiguation).

Albania , officially the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë, , or simply Shqipëria), is a country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, and Macedonia to the east. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.

Albania is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.Albania applies for EU membership, BBC News, 28 April 2009. Retrieved on 29 April 2009

Albania is a parliamentary democracy and a transition economy. The Albanian capital, Tirana, is home to approximately 895,000 of the country's 3.6 million people, and it is also the financial capital of the country.Population stats from tirana.gov.al Free-market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in the development of energy and transportation infrastructure.Reports: Poverty Decreases In Albania After Years Of Growth.Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-5500.http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200904231403dowjonesdjonline000935&title=reports-poverty-decreases-in-albania-after-years-of-growthAlbania plans to build three hydropower plants.People's Daily Strong GDP growth reduces poverty in Albania-study.Reuters.http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/04/23/afx6330798.html

Tirana () is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Albania. It was founded in 1614 by Sulejman Pasha and became Albania's capital city in 1920. The Municipality of Tirana is located at (41.33°N, 19.82°E) in Tirana District, Tirana County and is bordered to the north by the hills of Kamza, east by Mount Dajt, west by the hills of Vaqarr and Yzberisht, and south by the hills of Krrabë and Sauk. Tirana's average altitude is above sea level and lies on the Ishëm River, about inland.

There are two main rivers that run through the city: the Lana and the Tirana. The city also contains a total of four lakes: Tirana Lake, Kodër-Kamëz Lake, Farka Lake, and Tufina Lake. Tirana's highest point measures 1,828 m. The city is on the same parallel as Naples, Madrid and Istanbul and on the same meridian as Budapest and Krakow.

Albania, part of the ancient Illyrian territories, a cross-road of civilizations and geopolitical interests during the barbarian onslaughts and later on a province of the Eastern and Western Empires, Rome and Byzantium, after, over centuries, having constituted and dissolved independent despotisms and principates, and after having eventually constituted the state of Skanderbeg, was forced to jump backwards to a historically remote stage of economic and social development due to the Ottoman occupation. The normal process of Albanian culture, which kept pace with European humanism, was interrupted. The first consequence of invasion was the outflow of intellectual elite to the West. Among such elite, many personalities became renowned in the humanist world, as, for e.g., historian Marin Barleti (1460-1513) who in 1510 published in Rome a history of Skanderbeg, which was translated almost into all European languages, or Marino Becichemi (1408-1526), Gjon Gazulli (1400-1455), Leonicus Thomeus (1456-1531), Michele Maruli (15th century), Michele Artioti (1480-1556) and many others who were distinguished in various fields of science, art and philosophy.