Counties of Albania
First-level administrative divisions of Albania
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Counties (Albanian: qarqe or qarqet), also sometimes known as prefectures (prefektura or prefekturat), are the first-level administrative subdivisions of Albania, replacing the earlier districts. Since 2000, there have been 12 counties. Since 2015, they have been divided into 61 municipalities, 373 communes, and 2,972 villages.
| Counties of Albania | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Category | Unitary state |
| Location | Republic of Albania |
| Number | 12 |
| Populations | 59,381 (Gjirokastër) – 906,166 (Tiranë) |
| Areas | 766 km2 (296 sq mi) (Durrës)–3,711 km2 (1,433 sq mi) (Korçë) |
| Government |
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| Subdivisions | |
History
Since its Declaration of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, Albania has reorganized its domestic administrative divisions 21 times. The primary division until mid-2000 was into districts (rrathë or rrathët), whose number, size, and importance varied over time.[1] They were organized into groups comprising 12 counties beginning in 1991.[1]
The current status of the counties[2] is based on the 1998 constitution and was implemented on 31 July 2000.[3] The former districts were abolished entirely and replaced with urban municipalities (bashki or bashkitë) and rural municipalities (komuna or komunat), which further oversaw villages (fshatra or fshatrat) in the countryside. This was revised in 2014, so that the 2015 local elections divided the counties into municipalities (bashki or bashkitë) at the regional level and administrative units (njësi administrative or njësitë administrative) for local government.
