Albania

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ogg\" src=\" /ælˈbeɪniə/ (help·info), officially the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced , or simply Shqipëria, Gheg Albanian: Shqipnija), is a country in South Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, and the Republic of Macedonia to the east. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 miles) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.

The country is a member of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and Union for the Mediterranean. It is also a potential candidate for membership in the European Union and received a NATO membership invitation on 3 April 2008. Albania is expected to formally join the 26-nation pact next April on NATO's 60th birthday, and has provided support and troops for security and peacekeeping missions in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chad.

Albania is a parliamentary democracy and a transition economy. The Albanian capital, Tirana, is home to approximately 600,000 of the country's 3.6 million people, and it is also the financial capital of the country. Free-market reforms have opened the country to foreign investment, especially in the development of energy and transportation infrastructure.

Etymology

Albania is the Medieval Latin name of the country which is called Shqipëri by its inhabitants. In Medieval Greek, the country's name is Albania besides variants Albaētia, Arbanētia. The ultimate origin of the root Alb- has been traced to an Illyrian (alb \"hill\"). In the 2nd century BC, Polybius's History of the World mentions a tribe named Arbon in present-day central Albania. The people who lived there were called Albanoí and Arbanitai.

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