Gjirokastër

Gjirokastër, today a city with a population of about 20.000, developed on the hill where the castle is located in the Middle Ages. The first fortification dates to the 5th-6th centuries CE during the period of Slavic migrations. It was expanded in the 9th-10th centuries and urban development in the castle area dates to the 13th-14th centuries. During this period, Gjirokastër developed into a center known in medieval sources as Argyrokastron, meaning "Silver Castle". The city was first mentioned by the name Argyrokastro in 1336.

The Albanian Zenebishi clan held Gjirokastër by the end of the century. In this era, the city was contested between the Italian and Serbian rulers. It was taken by the Ottomans in 1418. During the Ottoman period conversions to Islam and an influx of Muslim converts from the surrounding countryside made Gjirokastër go from being an overwhelmingly Christian city in the 16th century into one with a large Muslim population by the early 19th century.

In the 1570s local nobles discussed as Greek representative of enslaved Greece and Albania with the head of the Holy League, John of Austria, the possibility of an anti-Ottoman armed struggle, but this initiative was fruitless.

During the communist regime the city was elevated to the status of a museum town, as it was the birthplace of dictatorial ruler of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania Enver Hoxha.

View from the castle