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 (now Dubrovnik) was a Balkan mercantile power and needed access to the interior of the peninsula. The road followed the Drin River valley. Both the Via Egnatia and the Via Zenta fell into disuse during the centuries of Ottoman control, but the basic course of the Roman road is followed by one of the few major highways that has been constructed in the twentieth century.

Independent Albania was slow to begin construction of roads that would better conform to the country's national requirements. During World War I Austrian forces built some 400 miles of strategic roads while they occupied the area. The Italians did the same during World War II. In both cases the objective was to improve communications with external points. There was no attempt to construct a network that would integrate the country.

The Hoxha regime has placed more emphasis on internal communications, and in 1969 it claimed that the principal road network had been expanded by three times over what it had been in 1938. Perhaps 3,000 miles could be classed as improved roads. These are considered all-weather roads, although those in the mountains may be closed by snows. Most of the surfaces are hardened with compacted stone or gravel, and a few have a tarry stabilizer. Better roads have asphalt surfaces. Road construction in almost all parts of the country is difficult, especially in bridge building, and some roads are construction masterpieces. Once built, however, routine maintenance has ordinarily not been properly accomplished, and surfaces have deteriorated.

Railways