Korça and Voskopoja, south eastern Albania

Korça (or Korçë when in a sentence with a preposition as in "to", "in" or "from Korça ") is the main city of south-eastern Albania, situated on a plateau surrounded by the Morava Mountains at an altitude of about 850 m above sea level. The site has been continually inhabited for the last 6000 years, with strong Greek cultural influence in the Iron Age. It was important in the spread of Byzantine Christianity, with a church established in 898. It was a feudal estate in the 13th century, and in 1484 Koja Mirahor İlyas Bey, the local lord and a Muslim convert who had taken part in the 1453 Ottoman siege of Constantinople (1453), returned and built the mosque that bears his name. He developed Korça under the command of Sultan Mehmet II. It was rivalled by nearby Voskopoja, that in the mid-18th century had about 30,000 inhabitants (some claims are of 60,000 including immediate surroundings), making it the second-largest city (after Constantinople, now İstanbul) of European Turkey. But after military expeditions had been mounted against Voskopoja during the late 18th century, that city declined rapidly and Korça became the regional centre. Today it has a population of almost 60,000.

From the 17th century onwards Korça was a centre of commerce and trade. It was an important stopping point on the caravan routes in those days. In the 19th century it became a centre of the growth of Albanian national consciousness ("Rilindja") and in 1887 the first school to use the Albanian language opened here; its building is now the Museum of Education. Upon the declaration of Albanian independence in 1912, it was seized and occupied by Greek irredentist forces who called it Koritsa and claimed it and its surroundings as Greek territory. After great turmoil during the Balkan Wars and the First World War, Korça was awarded to Albania in 1920 by the International Boundary Commission, following a four-year French occupation. Enver Hoxha, the Albanian communist leader, attended and later taught at the Lycée (public secondary school) that the French founded there in 1916. Used as a military base by the Italians for operations against Greece during World War II, the city was occupied by the Greeks in 1940-41 and later by the Germans. Korça was restored to Albania in 1944.

Korça suffered greatly from the brutal redevelopment by the Hoxha regime in the 1970s; the old bazaar area was all but demolished. The town still has some large villas, in need of a spruce-up and busy shopping streets. The single domed Xhamia e Mirahorit (Mirahori Mosque) from 1494 is worth seeing: it is one of the most architecturally important mosques in Albania. The impressive Shen Gjergj (Saint George) Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania has been renovated and looks brand new. And 21 km to the west is Voskopoja, once a rival of Korça, now just a rural settlement, with some stone-built farm houses, modest peasant's dwellings, sheep huts and its famed churches in various stages of decay.

	Mirahori Mosque, Korça	Xhamia e Mirahorit	Apartment block, Korça	Albanian Orthodox church
	St. George Church	First Albanian school	Communist memorial	Old house, Korça
	Farm road, Voskopoja	Voskopoja farm house	Farmyard, Voskopoja	Quiet street, Voskopoja

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