The city of Gjirokastra marks today the 19th anniversary of its inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Prime Minister Edi Rama today released views from Gjirokastra, which preserves its historical values and houses by transforming them into tourist attractions for anyone visiting the city.

The increasing flow of tourists to the UNESCO-protected city is further engaging local structures to enrich the tourist guide, making Gjirokastra one of the main tourist spots in the country.

Considered a city that represents a unique testimony to the cultural tradition of life developed between the 14th and 19th centuries, Gjirokastra stands out with its fortified house type with stone slab roofs, in perfect harmony with the rocky landscape where it is situated.

The houses, a distinctive type in Albanian and late medieval Balkan house typology, play an important role in the city’s physiognomy.

Gjirokastra has 56 cultural monument houses of the first category, 502 of the second category, and many other complexes with historical, architectural, and cultural values.

The city preserves an intact urban scheme, where each house has unique characteristics linked to the terrain on which it is built. According to categories of cultural monuments, the city features a castle, a bazaar, religious buildings, and residential houses.

The castle, built in the 13th century, forms the nucleus of the city, while the bazaar (17th century), located in the city center, well retains the characteristics of a traditional market, with contiguous buildings laid with black stone cobblestones.

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