Albania

Albania

Albania / is a country in the Balkan region in southeastern Europe. It is bordered on the northwest by Montenegro, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the south and southeast. The country overlooks the Adriatic Sea to the west and the Ionian Sea to the southwest

Albania is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate to join the European Union since January 2003 and has formally applied for EU membership on April 28, 2009

Albania is a parliamentary democracy and its economy is in transition. The Albanian capital, Tirana, has about 607,467 people out of 2,936,281 million people in the country for the year 2018, and it is also the financial capital of the country. Free market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in energy development and transportation infrastructure. Albania was named among the top ten countries in the 2011 Lonely Planet List

The three largest and deepest tectonic lakes are partly located in the Balkan Peninsula in Albania. The surface area of ​​Lake Shkoder in the northwest of the country varies between 530 km 2. One third of this area is in Albania and two thirds in the Republic of Montenegro. The Albanian lake coast stretches 57 km (35 mi)

Lake Ohrid is located in the southeast of the country, between Albania and the Republic of Macedonia. It has a maximum depth of 289 meters, a variety of rare plants and animals, "living fossils" and many endemic species. Lake Ohrid is under the protection of UNESCO. Because of its historical and natural value

More than a third of the lands of Albania (i.e. about 10,000 square kilometers (2.5 million acres) are forested areas and the country is very rich in plants. About 3000 different types of plant species grow in Albania, many of which are used for medicinal purposes. Botanical Geography determines that Albania belongs To the Borrelian kingdom, it is shared by the Adriatic and East Mediterranean provinces of the Mediterranean region, and the Illyrian province of the Syracurelle region

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature and the digital maps of European ecoregions, which is funded by the European Environment Agency, the lands of Albania can be divided into three ecoregions: deciduous Illyrian forests, mixed Pindus mountain forests and mixed Dinaric forests. Forests comprise a wide range of mammals, including wolves, bears, wild boars, and chamois. Lynx, wild cats, pine martin and skunk are rare, but they are still alive in some parts of the country

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature and the digital maps of European ecoregions, which is funded by the European Environment Agency, the lands of Albania can be divided into three ecoregions: deciduous Illyrian forests, mixed Pindus mountain forests and mixed Dinaric forests. Forests comprise a wide range of mammals, including wolves, bears, wild boars, and chamois. Lynx, wild cats, pine martin and skunk are rare, but they are still alive in some parts of the country

Cyprus and Albania are the only two countries that recorded economic growth in the first quarter of 2009. The International Monetary Fund said in its last report that Albania and Cyprus recorded an increase of 0.4% and 0.3% for Albania and Cyprus, respectively. Albania (which was once an energy exporter) relied on hydropower to supply 53 percent of electrical demand, and imports provide the rest of its needs

The government's goal in creating a nuclear power plant is to make this country a powerhouse. Albania and Croatia are planning to build a joint nuclear power plant on Lake Shkoder, close to the border with Montenegro. The Republic of Montenegro criticized this plan because of the earthquake movement in this region

Albania has a large number of climatic regions due to its minimal area. Its coasts face the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea, its elevations are located on the Balkan highlands, and the whole country is located on a latitude exposure to a variety of climatic patterns during the winter and summer seasons. Typically, the weather of low coastal areas is a Mediterranean sea; the highlands have a continental Mediterranean climate

The climate in each of the lowland interior varies greatly between north and south. There is a moderate winter in the lowlands, on average it may reach around 7 ° C. While the average summer temperatures are 24 ° C. In the southern lowlands, the average temperature is 5 ° C higher throughout the year. The difference is greater than 5 ° C during the summer, and to a lesser extent in the winter

Albania has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world, at 77.43 years. Albanian society is considered a young community, with an average age of 28.9 years. After 1990, the Albanian population faced new phenomena such as migration, which greatly affected the distribution by regions and governorates. The regions in the north witnessed a decrease in the population, while the number increased in Tirana and Durres

The population of Albania was 3,152,600 on January 1, 2007 and it became 3170048 on January 1, 2008. Alternative sources estimate that the July 2009 census is 36,394,453, with an annual growth rate of 0.546 percent. Albania is a largely ethnically homogeneous country with a small presence of ethnic minorities

 The majority of the population is ethnic Albanians (98.6%). Minorities include the Greeks (1.17%) and others (0.23%) (Flash, Macedonians, Gypsies, Bulgarians, Egyptians, Balkans and Serbs). There is disagreement about the size of the Greek minority, as the Albanian government claims that the minority population is only 60,000, while the Greek government claims the number is 300,000

Most Western sources consider the size of the Greek minority to be ~ 2% of the population. The dominant language is Albanian, with two major dialects, the Gig and Tusk. Also, many Albanians are fluent in English, Italian, Greek or German