Albania, a "big village", only 6 municipalities are classified as "cities"

Kamza is the most urbanized municipality in Albania, with 99% of the population living in settlements classified as urban, while Tirana ranks second with 93.2% and Durrës third with 84.5%.

At the other extreme, a large part of the municipalities result without an urban core that meets international classification criteria with around 5 thousand inhabitants.

The ranking comes from the Final Report on the Administrative-Territorial Reform 2.0, which uses the DEGURBA methodology and 2023 Census data to measure the real settlement structure in each municipality.

After Kamza, Tirana and Durrës, the highest urbanization rates are recorded in Vlora, with 81%, Saranda, with 78.6%, Gjirokastër, with 76.4%, Korça, with 76.1% and Shkodra, with 74.2%.

Berat, Kuçova and Elbasan also have over 70% of the population in urban settlements, while Vora reaches 64%, Shijak 62.6% and Pogradec 59.1%.

The picture is significantly different in the rest of the territory. A large group of municipalities have very low or zero urbanization rates.

Among them are Himara, Përmet, Tepelena, Delvina, Konispoli, Selenica, Divjaka, Mirdita, Puka, Fushë-Arrëza, Tropoja and Hasi, as the administrative centers do not have a core population of 5 thousand inhabitants. The report explains that the zero rate does not mean that the municipality does not have an administrative center or settlements recognized as cities in the traditional sense.

The most illustrative case is Himara. Despite its strong tourist and coastal profile, the settlements do not form a connected cluster of over 5 thousand inhabitants according to the methodology threshold, so the urbanization rate results in 0%.

The data highlights the strong territorial polarization of Albania, where on one side stands the capital, the metropolitan corridor and several consolidated regional centers, while on the other, a significant portion of municipalities function as territories with many small, scattered settlements and without a dominant urban core.

The report estimates that only 6 municipalities are classified primarily as "city", 13 as "town and suburb", while 42 municipalities, about two-thirds of the local system, have a predominantly rural character.

This division also has a direct impact on the organization of public services. In municipalities with a dispersed population, distances, infrastructure and fixed costs make it more expensive to provide services per inhabitant, while more urbanized centers face greater pressure on transportation, housing and infrastructure./ Monitor