t Structure
and Political System).

The large expanses of rugged and generally inaccessible terrain provided
refuge for the Albanian ethnic group and permitted its distinctive
identity to survive throughout the centuries. Although the country was
almost always under foreign domination, it was never extensively
colonized because of the lack of arable land, easily exploitable
resources, and natural inland transportation routes. It has been, and
continues to be, poorly developed. Agricultural and pastoral pursuits
have been the primary means of livelihood, and only after 1950 did
industry begin to be developed to any appreciable degree.

Until recently, the coastal lowlands supported few people and did not
provide easy access to the interior. The mountains that constitute 70
percent of the country's area are difficult to traverse and generally
inhospitable. Rivers are almost entirely unnavigable, and only in the
south are there valleys wide enough to link the coast with the interior.
By 1970 no railway and only three good roads crossed the national
borders.

The physical characteristics of the land have contributed to differing
living conditions and social relationships in the various sectors of the
country. Before independence in 1912, the area of modern Albania had
never been politically integrated, nor had it ever been an economically
viable unit. It owes its existence as a state to the ethnic factor, and
survival of the ethnic group is attributable to the natural isolation of
the country.

The area is 11,100 square miles. The boundaries, established in
principle in 1913 and demarcated in 1923, were essentially unchanged in
1970, although Greece had not dropped its claim to a large part of
southern Albania. The eastern boundary divides the Macedonian lake
district among three states--Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia--that have
ethnic populations in the area and follows high mountain ridges wherever
possible to the north and south of the lakes. The northern and southern
borders were drawn to achieve a separation between the Albanians and
neighboring nationalities, although there is a large group of Albanians
in the Kosovo area of Yugoslavia across the northeastern border, and
Greeks and Albanians intermingle in the southeast (see fig. 1).

Resources are insufficient to make the country wealthy, and some that
are available have not been thoroughly exploited. Interior regions have
been inaccessible. Agricultural land