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The City of Tirana is located at (41.33°N, 19.82°E) in Tirana District, Tirana County and is bordered to the north by the hills of Kamza, east by Mount Dajt, west by the hills of Vaqarr and Yzberisht, and south by the hills of Krrabë and Sauk. Tirana's average altitude is 110 meters (361 ft) above sea level and lies on the Ishëm River, about 20 miles (32 km) inland. There are two main rivers that run through the city: the Lana and the Tirana River. The city also contains a total of four lakes: Tirana Lake, Kodër-Kamëz Lake, Farka Lake, and Tufina Lake.

[edit] Population

Tirana's expansion from 1990 to 2005.

In 2007, Tirana's population was officially at 607,467.^[2]

In 1703, Tirana had about 4,000 inhabitants and by 1820 there were approximately 12,000. The city's population rose to 25,079 by 1930 and near 70,000 in 1945, despite the intervening years of foreign occupation and war. During the 1950s, Tirana experienced rapid industrial growth, and the population increased to about 137,000 by 1960.

[edit] Etymology

• 
  from the word "Theranda", used by Greek and Latin sources to refer to the area, after the local term "te ranat", meaning fallen material, in reference to the composition of the terrain from hard earth carried down by water from the nearby mountains.
  
• 
  from "Tirkan", the name used by the sixth century Byzantine historian Procopius to refer to a castle, first built in the first century BC, on Mount Dajti, the ruins of which still stand.
  
• 
  from "tyros", the old Greek word for dairy, reflecting the fact that local shepherds gathered here to trade dairy products.
  
• 
  from "Tiras" whom the ancient Thracians worshipped. They named many places in the Thracian area after this god.
  
• 
  an often-repeated explanation, though ultimately fallacious, is that Tirana was so named by Sulejman Pasha after the Persian capital Tehran, to mark his conquest of Persia in the 17th century. This seems to be contradicted by the use of Tirana's name in its current form (il borgo di Tirana) appearing in a Venetian document of 1572.^[3]
  
• 
  When Sulejman Pasha was at the location of what would become Tirana, he came across an elderly woman and asked her what she was doing. She replied, "Po tir an" (spinning silk).
  
• 
  from regional dialect of central Albania, the first version for Tiranë origin name is true, but not referring to fallen material, but to peoples. If we analyze the demographic movements of the population of the surrounding are, we will observe that the first inhabitants of the town (village at that time) are from the mountains around. In regional dialect always the displaced peoples from the mountains to the plain are called “Të rânë. That means peoples who have come down from the mountains. Still today the pronunciation “Tiranë” in the regional dialect is “Tirônë”.
  
• 
  there is another theory for the origin of name that is "tri ane". It means the three ways because the most important commercial ways, the ones that come from Shkodër, Berat and Durrës, of the time passed through the modern center of Tirana. That's why Sulejman Pasha built a moschea, a popular Turkish bathroom and a kind of hotel "han" for the caravans to rest.
  

[edit] History

The records of the first land registrations under the Ottomans in 1431-32 show that Tirana consisted of 60 inhabited areas, with nearly 1,000 houses and 7,300 inhabitants. The 1583 registration records that Tirana had 110 inhabited areas, with 2,900 houses and 20,000 inhabitants.

On February 8, 1920, Tirana was chosen as the temporary capital of Albania, which had acquired independence in 1912, by the Congress of Lushnja. The city retained that status permanently on December 31, 1925. Since 1925, when they were banned in Turkey, the Bektashis, an order of dervishes who take their name from Haji Bektash, a Sufi saint of the 13th and 14th centuries, made Tirana their primary settlement. The first regulatory plan of the city was compiled in 1923 by Estef Frashëri. Durrësi Street was opened in 1922 and was called Nana Mbretneshë (Mother Queen). Many houses and surrounding properties were demolished to make way for it. The existing parliamentary building was raised in 1924 and first served as a club for officers. It was there, in September 1928, that King Zog I was crowned King.

Tirana on November 20, 1944

The center of Tirana was the project of Florestano de Fausto and Armando Brasini, well known architects of the Mussolini period in Italy. The Palace of Brigades, the government ministry buildings, the National Bank, today's Municipality, and the University buildings are their work. Dëshmorët e Kombit (National Martyrs) Boulevard was built in 1930 and named "Zogu I Boulevard." In the communist period, the part from Skënderbeg Square up to the train station was named "Stalin Boulevard". Tirana was occupied until 1944, first by the Italians, and then by the Germans. The Nazis eventually withdrew and the communists seized power.

The former building of Tirana's Municipality.

In the following decades, a number of buildings with cultural significance were demolished to make way for the formation of today's Scanderbeg Square. In the place of today's Hotel Tirana International building used to be established the Autocephaleus Orthodox Church, one the biggest in the country. Near the grounds of today's Opera house at the Palace of Culture used to be the Old Bazaar (Pazari i Vjetër), hence the name of Tirana's market, Pazari i Ri (New Bazaar). The National Museum is built on the grounds of the former building of the Municipality of Tirana. The building was detonated and the Museum was completed in 1982. The first structure which used to house the Parliament of Albania in King Zog's period was later transformed into a children's theater, the Dolls' Theater (Teatri i Kukullave).

A series of explosion at an army depot near Tirana March 15, 2008 killed at least fifteen and injured 243 people, including many children, and damaged the city's nearby International Airport Nënë Tereza.[1]