Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0005/00054.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 22KB | 376 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00054}
$Pretitle{298}
$Title{Albania
Chapter 3A.   Physical Environment}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Eugene K. Keefe, Sarah Jane Elpern, Willaim Giloane, James M. Moore, Jr., Weston White}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{area
country
miles
lake
north
areas
albania
border
land
mountains}
$Date{1971}
$Log{Figure 2.*0005401.scf
Figure 3.*0005402.scf
}
Country:     Albania
Book:        Albania, A Country Handbook
Author:      Eugene K. Keefe, Sarah Jane Elpern, Willaim Giloane, James M. Moore, Jr., Weston White
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1971

Chapter 3A.   Physical Environment

     Albania has land borders on the north and east with Yugoslavia and on the
south and southeast with Greece. Tirana, the capital, is less than an hour by
aircraft from eight other European capitals and barely more than two hours
from the most distant of them. The coastline is adjacent to shipping lanes
that have been important since early Greek and Roman times. Nevertheless,
partly because of its rugged terrain and partly because of its political
orientation, the country remains remote and isolated from its European
neighbors (see ch. 6, Government Structure and Political System).

     The large expanses of rugged and generally inaccessible terrain provided
refuge for the Albanian ethnic group and permitted its distinctive identity to
survive throughout the centuries. Although the country was almost always under
foreign domination, it was never extensively colonized because of the lack of
arable land, easily exploitable resources, and natural inland transportation
routes. It has been, and continues to be, poorly developed. Agricultural and
pastoral pursuits have been the primary means of livelihood, and only after
1950 did industry begin to be developed to any appreciable degree.

     Until recently, the coastal lowlands supported few people and did not
provide easy access to the interior. The mountains that constitute 70 percent
of the country's area are difficult to traverse and generally inhospitable.
Rivers are almost entirely unnavigable, and only in the south are there
valleys wide enough to link the coast with the interior. By 1970 no railway
and only three good roads crossed the national borders.

     The physical characteristics of the land have contributed to differing
living conditions and social relationships in the various sectors of the
country. Before independence in 1912, the area of modern Albania had never
been politically integrated, nor had it ever been an economically viable unit.
It owes its existence as a state to the ethnic factor, and survival of the
ethnic group is attributable to the natural isolation of the country.

     The area is 11,100 square miles. The boundaries, established in principle
in 1913 and demarcated in 1923, were essentially unchanged in 1970, although
Greece had not dropped its claim to a large part of southern Albania. The
eastern boundary divides the Macedonian lake district among three
states-Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia-that have ethnic populations in the
area and follows high mountain ridges wherever possible to the north and south
of the lakes. The northern and southern borders were drawn to achieve a
separation between the Albanians and neighboring nationalities, although there
is a large group of Albanians in the Kosovo area of Yugoslavia across the
northeastern border, and Greeks and Albanians intermingle in the southeast
(see fig. 1).

     Resources are insufficient to make the country wealthy, and some that are
available have not been thoroughly exploited. Interior regions have been
inaccessible. Agricultural land has been inefficiently used for centuries
because people having large landholdings preferred to maintain more profitable
livestock herds rather than cultivate the earth for foodstuff production.
Malaria, until the 1930s, prevented development or reclamation of the coastal
lowlands. Lacking the capital investment necessary, extensive development
projects had not been undertaken by 1970.

     The lowlands and the lower mountains of the south have a Mediterranean
climate; weather in the northern and eastern highlands is dominated by the
continental airmasses that persist over central and Eastern Europe. Overall
rainfall is plentiful throughout the country, but most areas receive it
seasonally.

     Apart from the bare rock mountains and portions of the alluvial lowlands
that are alternately parched and inundated, most of the land encourages a wide
variety of wild vegetation. Areas suitable for cultivation, however, are
small. There are good soils on about 5 percent of the land surface, but land
three or four times that percentage is considered arable. Forests cover nearly
one-half of the land. About one-fourth is suitable for grazing animals.

     The citizen relates closely to the land. Although he has been nationally
independent for only a few years in the twentieth century and very seldom
earlier, his property has been so difficult to reach that occupying powers
have often left him alone. The land has had beauty that has fostered pride and
loyalty, and a hardy breed has survived the constant struggle to derive an
existence from it.

Natural Regions

     The 70 percent of the country that is mountainous is rugged and often
inaccessible. The remaining alluvial plain receives its precipitation
seasonally, is poorly drained, is alternately arid or flooded, and much of it
is devoid of fertility. Far from offering a relief from the difficult interior
terrain, it is often as inhospitable to its inhabitants as are the mountains.
Good soil and dependable precipitation occur, however, in river basins within
the mountains, in the lake district on the eastern border, and in a narrow
band of slightly elevated land between the coastal plains and the higher
interior mountains (see fig. 2).

North Albanian Alps

     The mountains of the far north of Albania are an extension of the Dinaric
Alpine chain and, more specifically, the Montenegrin limestone (karst)
plateau. They are, however, more folded and rugged than the more typical
portions of the plateau. The rivers have deep valleys with steep sides and do
not furnish arable valley floors; most of the grazing and farming are done on
the flatter mountaintops. The rivers provide little access into the area and
are barriers to communication within it. Roads are few and poor. Lacking
internal communications and external contacts, a tribal society flourished
within this Alpine region for centuries. Only after World War II were serious
efforts made to incorporate the people of the region into the remainder of the
country.

Southern Mountains

     The extent of the region occupied by the southern mountains is not
settled to the satisfaction of all authorities. Some include all of the area
in a large diamond shape roughly encompassing all the uplands of southern
Albania beneath lines connecting Vlore, Elbasan, and Korce. Although this area
has trend lines of the same type and orientation, it includes mountains that
are associated more closely with the systems in the central part of the
country. Other authorities confine the area to the mountains that are east of
Vlore and south of the Vijose River. These have features generally common to
southern Albania and the adjacent Greek Epirus. This demarcation is considered
preferable because it more nearly defined a traditional area that tends to
lose some of the more purely national character of the lands north of it.

     The southern ranges revert again to the northwest to southeast trend
lines characteristics of the Dinaric Alps. They are, however, more gentle and
accessible than the serpentine zone, the eastern highlands, or the North
Albanian Alps. Transition to the lowlands is less abrupt, and arable valley
floors are wider. Limestone is predominant, contributing to the cliffs and
clear water along the Albanian Riviera. An intermixture of softer rocks has
eroded and become the basis for the sedimentation that has