Shkodër

Shkodër stands by the lake that bears its name, where the Buna, Drin and Kir rivers meet beneath the mountains of northern Albania. Ancient Scodra was a capital of the Illyrian kingdom until the Romans defeated King Gentius in 168 BC. Its great hilltop fortress, Rozafa, overlooks the waters and the approaches from the Adriatic. In the Middle Ages the city passed between Balkan rulers before becoming a Venetian possession.

The Balšić lords handed Shkodër to Venice in 1396. In 1478 Sultan Mehmed II surrounded the city and bombarded its fortress with heavy cannon, but the defenders held out. A Venetian–Ottoman agreement in 1479 ended the siege and ceded the city to the Ottomans; those who wished to leave could depart. Shkodër became the seat of an Ottoman sanjak and a centre of northern Albanian commerce, with craftsmen working in cloth, silk, arms and silver. From 1757 to 1831 the powerful Bushati family ruled a pashalik centred on the city.