lore. The crude oil, however, has a high sulfur
content and is expensive to refine.

Chrome is the most important export commodity. Albania is the largest
chrome source in Eastern Europe, and its mines have at times supplied
about 2 percent of the world's total. Good-quality copper ore is also
available in export quantities.

No hard coal veins are known, but lignite is plentiful and its deposits
are accessible. Asphalt (bitumen) occurs in a concentrated deposit in
one small area. This source has been actively worked for centuries. Some
of it has been exported.

Iron, nickel, gold, and silver ores occur in less important deposits.
Iron is plentiful, but the ores are of low grade. The other deposits are
minor. Bauxite appears in quantity deposits in several areas. Sufficient
year-round power sources, however, are not available to process it.
Magnesite, arsenic, pyrites, and gypsum sources are worked. Clay and
kaolin suitable for pottery are also extracted. Salt is abundant.
Limestone is available throughout the country and quarried wherever it
is needed.

TRANSPORTATION

Even when its territory sat astride a direct route between two points,
Albania was usually bypassed because there was nearly always a longer
way around that was easier and safer. As a result, its transportation
links with the rest of the world are very few. Its internal systems are
also inadequate for good communications within the country. All railways
are short, internal routes, and the lines that were complete in 1970
connected only three of the major cities. Two primary roads, one of
which was originally constructed by the Romans, cross into Greece, and a
third crosses into Yugoslavia. Only a dozen more roads, all of them
secondary, lead out of the country. There is little air traffic with the
outside world; it usually involves connecting flights to major airlines
in neighboring countries (see fig. 1).

Roads

Until the twentieth century only two major roads crossed what is now
Albania. The Romans built the Via Egnatia, which makes an east-west
transit from Durres (known as Dyrrhachium in Roman times), via the
Shkumbin River valley, to the lake district. It continued eastward
across the Balkan Peninsula to Thessaloniki and Constantinople (now
Istanbul), and the Romans used it to move forces overland to the eastern
portions of their empire. A north-south route, the Via Zenta, was built
by Ragusan merchants during the period when Ragusa (n