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Albania
Greeks and Other Minorities
The Greek minority, Albania's largest, has deep roots in the
country's two southeasternmost districts, Sarandė and Gjirokastėr,
in an area many Greeks call Northern Epirus . Estimates of the
size of the Greek population in 1989 varied from 59,000, or 1
percent of the total (from the official Albanian census); to 266,800,
or 8 percent (from data published by the United States government);
to as high as 400,000, or 12 percent (from the "Epirot lobby"
of Greeks with family roots in Albania). Greeks were harshly affected
by the communist regime's attempts to homogenize the population
through restrictions on the religious, cultural, educational,
and linguistic rights of minorities. Internal exile and other
population movements served as instruments of policy to dilute
concentrations of Greeks and to deprive Greeks of their status
as a recognized minority. Despite improvements in Greco-Albanian
relations during the late 1980s and a significant increase in
cross-border visits, reports of persecution, harassment, and discrimination
against Greeks, as well as other minorities, persisted.
Smaller ethnic groups, including Bulgarians, Gypsies, Jews, Macedonians,
Montenegrins, Serbs, and Vlachs, altogether accounted for about
2 percent of the total population. Persons of Macedonian and Bulgarian
origin lived mostly in the border area near Lake Prespa. The Vlachs,
akin to modern Romanians, were most numerous in the Pindus Mountains
and in the districts of Fier, Korēė, and Vlorė. A few persons
of Serbian and Montenegrin derivation resided around the city
of Shkodėr. There were small Jewish communities in Tiranė, Vlorė,
and Korēė; and Gypsies were scattered throughout the country.
Data as of April 1992
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