Kukës

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kukës
Kukësi
Coat of arms of Kukës
Kukës (Albania)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg

Coordinates: 42 ° 5 '  N , 20 ° 25'  E

Basic data
Qark : Kukës
Municipality : Kukës
Height : 350  m above sea level A.
Area : 933.86 km²
Residential place : 16,719 (2011)
Bashkia residents : 47,985 (2011)
Population density (Bashkia): 51 inhabitants / km²
Telephone code : (+355) 24
Postal code : 8501-8503
Politics and administration (as of 2019 )
Mayor : Safet Gjici ( PS )
Website :
Culture and history
Local place name : Kuks / Kuksi
City foundation : 1962
City Festival : 22nd of July
City View (2015)

City View (2015)

Kukës ( Albanian  also  Kukësi ) is a small town in northern Albania with 16,719 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Qark of the same name and the former district of the same name and the center of the northeast of the country.

geography

The city is located in the middle of the northern Albanian mountains above the confluence of the White and Black Drins at around 350  m above sea level. A. South of the Kukës rises the Gjallica ( 2485  m above sea level ), in the east the Koritnik ( 2393  m above sea level ), in the northeast of the Pashtrik ( 1988  m above sea level ), in the west they rise less rapidly to great heights.

The river inside is dammed up at this point : The Liqeni i Fierzës reservoir buried the old town - called Kukës i vjetër - under itself in 1976 . The new town of Kukësi i ri - the groundbreaking took place in July 1968 - was built on a windy plateau on a range of hills between two arms of the lake (the Luma formerly flowed in the east ) and should originally have accommodated up to 30,000 people. The cityscape is therefore characterized by multi-storey prefabricated buildings. In recent years, however, some new buildings and a large mosque have been built.

At the former Albturist Hotel you have a good view of the river valley.

history

Refugee camp and dilapidated industrial facilities east of the city (1999)

Historically, the area was mainly associated with Kosovo and the city of Prizren . It is only 15 kilometers as the crow flies to the Kosovar border, which was no longer passable after 1945. During the Kosovo War in 1999, Kukës briefly achieved worldwide fame when tens of thousands of Albanian refugees from Kosovo crossed the border at Morina and found refuge in Kukës and hundreds of journalists covered the events. Around Kukës, refugee camps were built from tents that were run by international aid organizations and the armies of NATO countries.

The region around Kukës experienced an upswing during communist rule thanks to mining , the timber industry and state agriculture. The old trading center, where important roads through the northern Albanian mountains came together, was very small for a long time: in 1938 it had 1,191 inhabitants, in 1945 it only had 1,070. However, more and more companies were established and copper  and chromium  mined in the area , so that the population gradually rose again: 3,896 inhabitants in 1955, 4,275 in 1965, over 11,000 in 1982 and 14,300 in 1990.

In the 1990s, many residents left the region, which is one of the poorest in Albania and hardly offers any jobs.

Infrastructure

For a long time, Kukës was very isolated from the rest of Albania, as the drive was on bad roads through the mountains and took many hours. In 2006, construction work began on the A1 motorway from Durrës to Kosovo, which was officially opened in June 2009 and at least one lane was provisionally opened to traffic. This new connection is 177 kilometers long and now enables a fast, mostly four-lane connection between Kosovo and the Albanian coast.

The United Arab Emirates financed the construction of a new airport . The functioning Kukës "Zayed" Airport was not actually put into operation. The operators of Tirana Airport have agreed with the Albanian state that all international flights to Albania must go through their airport. A market for domestic flights has not existed since the opening of the autobahn. The military and police occasionally use the airfield.

Sports

The local soccer club FK Kukësi plays in the highest Albanian league, the Klassenia Superiore .

Personalities

literature

  • Berthold Hesselmann, Manfred Kahr, Marion Niederberghaus: On the geography of the Albanian city . In: Cay Lienau , Günter Prinzing (Ed.): Albania - Contributions to geography and history . Publishing house Dr. Cay Lienau, Münster 1986, ISBN 3-9801245-0-9 , p. 243-249 .

Web links

Commons : Kukës  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ines Nurja: Censusi i popullsisë dhe banesave / Population and Housing Census - Kukës 2011 . Results Kryesore / Main Results. Ed .: INSTAT . Pjesa / Part 1. Adel Print, Tirana 2013 ( instat.gov.al [PDF; accessed April 14, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Michael Schmidt-Neke and Örjan Söberg: Population structure . In: Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (Hrsg.): Albanien (=  Südosteuropa-Handbuch ). tape VII . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-525-36207-2 , pp. 464-490 .
  3. ↑ Jean-Arnault Dérens, Laurent Geslin: The highway of national corruption , in: Le Monde Diplomatique of 26 May 2009
  4. ^ MAK Albania Company Profile (English) ( Memento from April 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Picture gallery Kukës Airport ( Memento from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive )