Korça County

Circle :	Korça
Main place:	Korça
Qark :	Korça district
Surface:	1752 km²
Residents:	121,041   as of 2011
Population density:	69.09 inhabitants / km²
ISO-3166-2 code:	AL-KO
License plate :	KO

Mountain village west of Korça

The district of Korça ( Albanian  Rreth i Korçës ) was one of the 36 administrative districts of Albania that were abolished in the summer of 2015 after an administrative reform. The area with an area of ​​1752 square kilometers formed the largest circle in the country. It is located in the Qark of the same name and had 121,041 inhabitants (2011). The district was named after the main town Korça .

geography

The area is located in the south-east of the country in a mountainous region. Mountains surround the central plain of Korça , which is around 850  m above sea level. A. lies. The mountains reach heights of up to 2373  m above sea level in the west and north-west . A. ( Valamara ), in the northeast almost 2300  m above sea level. A. , in the south still more than 2000  m above sea level. A.

Only in the narrow Devoll valley west of Maliq does the area drop below 800  m above sea level. A. The river crosses the district from east to west in almost its entire extent. After Maliq it breaks through the mountains towards the Adriatic in a narrow valley. It drains the whole region with the exception of a few valleys in the extreme southwest and the drainless basin of the Prespa lake in the northeast, which over 1,100  m above sea level. A. high Zvezda pass can be reached.

The Prespa National Park  around the two Prespa lakes and the small Drenova National Park ( Bredhi i Drenovës ) in the mountains south of Korça protect more than 290 square kilometers.

Korça in the Korça plain

The Korça Plain ( Pellgu i Korçës ) is 35 kilometers long and up to 15 kilometers wide. In the past, the area around Maliq was not only heavily swampy, there was even a real lake. The fed by Devoll Maliksee but was like the marshes after the Second World War drained. Numerous prehistoric finds from the Neolithic and Bronze Age were made. As a result, sugar beets in particular were grown in the Korça plain .

The high altitude of the area also means hard winters with lots of snow. The average January temperature in Korça is 1 ° C, in July it reaches an average of 18 ° C.

Lignite was mined in various places, especially in the north of the district .

population

In Korça County, almost 25% of the population belong to minorities. In addition to some Greeks live mainly in mountainous areas Vlachs and Pustec Municipality (Liqenas) Macedonians. There are also many Roma in Korça . About two thirds of the residents profess Sunni Islam or the Bektashi . There are also many Orthodox people in Korça .

traffic

A newly built expressway through Bilisht connects Korça with nearby Greece. Another important road goes north to Pogradec and from there to central Albania and the Macedonian Ohrid .

Communities

The area of ​​the district has been divided into the municipalities ( bashkia ) Korça, Maliq and Pustec since 2015 .

Former parishes in the district

Surname	Population (2011)	Community type	Belongs to new
Korça	51,152	Bashkia	Korça
Maliq	4,290	Bashkia	Maliq
Drenova	5,581	Komuna	Korça
Gora	1,565	Komuna	Maliq
Lekas	392	Komuna	Korça
Libonik	8,922	Komuna	Maliq
Moglica	951	Komuna	Maliq
Mollaj	3,438	Komuna	Korça
Pirg	7,652	Komuna	Maliq
Pojan	10,864	Komuna	Maliq
Pustec (formerly or Albanian: Liqenas )	3,290	Komuna	Pustec
Qendër Korça	9,022	Komuna	Korça
Vithkuq	1,519	Komuna	Korça
Voskop	3,832	Komuna	Korça
Voskopoja	1,058	Komuna	Korça
Vreshtas	7,513	Komuna	Maliq

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ines Nurja: Censusi i popullsisë dhe banesave / Population and Housing Census - Korçë 2011 . Results Kryesore / Main Results. Ed .: INSTAT . Pjesa / Part 1. Adel Print, Tirana 2013 ( instat.gov.al [PDF; accessed April 14, 2019]).