World Heritage Sites in Albania: Every UNESCO Site

Little Albania packs in four UNESCO World Heritage Sites — from Ottoman stone towns to an entire ancient city and primeval forests. For a traveller, they make a convenient planning skeleton: three of them are concentrated in the south and fit into a single route, while the other two require a detour. Here’s the rundown of them all.

The stone towns: Berat and Gjirokastër

The two towns are listed together as the “Historic Centres of Berat and Gjirokastër” — rare examples of a well-preserved Ottoman town. Berat, the “town of a thousand windows”, white and graceful, climbs above the Osum river with its Mangalem and Gorica quarters. Gjirokastër is silver-grey and fortified, with a huge castle and 18th-century stone houses. Both fall on the southern axis between Tirana and Sarandë.

The ancient city: Butrint

Butrint, near Sarandë, is a separate listing — an entire ancient city with Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian layers, inside a national park of wetlands and forest. Archaeologically, it’s the most impressive site in Albania, and it’s easy to combine with a beach in Ksamil and the Blue Eye spring. A guided tour of the southern sites links Butrint and Gjirokastër over a day or two.

Ohrid and the primeval forests

The other two sites are less known. The Lake Ohrid region in eastern Albania (around Pogradec) is a shared natural-and-cultural site with North Macedonia, one of the oldest lakes in the world. The primeval beech forests — at Gashi and Rrajca — are part of a multi-country European site of ancient forests, remote and aimed at dedicated nature lovers.

Where to stay

To sleep near the stone towns, choose Berat or Gjirokastër themselves (in a stone house in the old town); for Butrint the base is Sarandë. Compare stays in Gjirokastër in advance.

For the full picture see the Albania guide, Butrint and the cities guide.