Gjinokastër

Gjinokastër 

(Gjirokastra), a city in southern Albania, in the Drini River valley. Population, 15,600 (1967). It is a highway junction. It has food-processing, tobacco, leather, and metalworking plants.

Gjinokastër was founded in the fourth century. In the 14th century it probably belonged to Venice, and from 1460 to the early 20th century, to Turkey. Its architectural monuments include a Venetian fortress (known since the 14th century) and medieval residences built on hillsides—two- or three-storied stone house-fortresses (kuls), with windowless bottom floors, overhanging roofs, and windows covered with gratings. There is also an 18th-century cathedral and an early-18th-century mosque. The Labove e Kryki Church (tenth and 11th centuries) is near Gjinokastër.