Albanians

:This article is about the Albanians as an ethnic group. For information about the residents or nationals of Albania, see demographics of Albania.

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The Albanians are an ethnic group generally associated with Albania and the Albanian language. The majority of the Albanians nowadays live in the Republic of Albania, although there are Albanian minorities or immigrant communities in a number of other countries.

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Due to the high rate of migration of various ethnic groups throughout the Balkans in the last two decades, exact figures are difficult to obtain. A tenuous breakdown of Albanians by location is as follows:

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• 3,129,000 in Albania according to the Institute of Statistics for 2002, but estimates for 2002 http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/al.html#People put it at around 3,544,841.
• 1,770,000 in Serbia and Montenegro which can be broken up as follows:
• 1,730,000 in Kosovo (the OSCE estimates about 1,672,000 Albanians).
• 67,000 Serbia excluding Kosovo (2002 census)
• 31,000 in Montenegro (according to the 2003 census; an estimated 50,000 http://www.albanian.com/information/countries/montenegro/index.html by Albanian accounts).
• 509,000 in the Republic of Macedonia (from the 2002 census).
• more than 233,000 Albanians in Italy, the majority having arrived since 1991 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=68624. See also Arb?resh?.
• In Greece, there were more waves of immigration from Albania, from the 14th century to the 1990s. As such, they are divided into different groups:
• "?am" Muslim Albanians; an unknown number reside in the Greek region of Epirus (?am?ria in Albanian) - there were thought to be around 19,000 before the end of World War II, during which many fled to Albania to avoid the impending military court sentences, a consequence of their collaboration with the Italian/German occupying forces.
• The Arvanites, who identify nationally as Greeks, traditionally speak a variety of Tosk Albanian called Arvanitic, but nowadays most Arvanites speak Greek. The number of Arvanitic speakers is estimated between 40,000 and 160,000.
• Albanian nationals, including many ethnic Greeks and Greek-identifying Aromanians or Arvanitovlachs in addition to ethnic Albanians, that arrived during the 1990s, mainly as illegal immigrants; as many as 500,000, according to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
• Albanians living permanently in Scandinavia:
• in Sweden: 155,000 Albanians.
• in Denmark: 120,000 Albanians.
• in Norway: 50,000 Albanians.
• In Turkey, Turkish demographers have continuously mentioned numbers up to six million. However, many Albanians, who were deported from their land to Turkey have been assimilated due to the assimilation policy of Turkish government.
• In Egypt: 18,000 Albanians. Mostly Tosk speakers. Many are descendants of the soldiers of Muhammad Ali. Much of the former nobilty of Egypt was Albanian in origin.

Ethnic group: An ethnic group is a culture or subculture whose members are readily distinguishable by outsiders based on traits originating from a common racial, national, linguistic, or religious source. Members of an ethnic group are often presumed to be culturally or biologically similar, although this is not ...

Albania: :Albania was also the name of an unrelated ancient state in the Caucasus – see Caucasian Albania....

Demographics of Albania: This articles is about the demographics of the People of Albania. Most statistics are estimates from the CIA World Factbook publication as there are no available official statistics....

Albanians related Images and Photos (experimental)

Oxford Transports or Albanians Doing Penance For Past Offences The English Spy c.M. Westmacott