Geography of Albania
Albania is a small predominantly mountainous country in Southeastern Europe and has a total area of 28,748 km2 (11,100 sq mi).
Albania shares borders with four European countries: Montenegro in the northwest, Kosovo in the northeast, Macedonia in the west and Greece in the south. Albania's coastline length on the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea is 476 km (296 mi).
The lowlands of the west face the Adriatic Sea and the strategically important Strait of Otranto, which puts less than 72 km (45 mi) of water between Albania and the heel of the Italian "boot" (left Adriatic Sea to Ionian Sea and Mediterranean Sea).
With the exception of the coastline, all Albanian borders are artificial. They were established in principle at the 1912-1913 conference of ambassadors in London. The country was occupied by Italian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Austro-Hungarian, Greek, and French forces during World War I, but the 1913 boundaries were essentially reaffirmed by the victorious states in 1921. Division of the lake district among three states required that each of them have a share of the lowlands in the vicinity. Such an artificial distribution, once made, necessarily affected the borderlines to the north and south. The border that runs generally north from the lakes, although it follows the ridges of the eastern highlands, stays sixteen to thirty-two kilometers west of the watershed divide. Because negotiators at the London conference declined to use the watershed divide as the northeast boundary of the new state of Albania, the Albanian population of Kosovo was incorporated into Serbia.
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