Municipalities ( or ) are the second-level

administrative divisions Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

, below the

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

and above the

communes A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

. Since the most recent administrative reforms in 2014, Albania has 61 municipalities.

History

Municipalities are considered the basic administrative division of Albania. Since its Declaration of Independence from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in 1912, Albania has reorganized internal administration 21 times. From independence until the year 2000, regional government was organized into

regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

() of varying numbers, size, and importance. They were consolidated into groups comprising 12

in 1991. Following the 1998 constitutional reforms, the 36 regions of the time were abolished entirely and replaced by the larger counties and two kinds of municipalities: urban municipalities () and rural ones (). In 2014, this was revised to reduce the number of urban municipalities to 61 and extended their jurisdiction over the surrounding countryside to create regional administrations, while using the

renamed

administrative units Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

()as a third-level division for

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

. This first took effect in the 2015 local elections.

List

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Municipalities Of Albania Albania geography-related lists

Subdivisions of Albania Municipalities, Albania