The Greek minority, Albania's largest, has deep roots in the country's two southeasternmost districts, Sarandė and Gjirokastėr, in an area many Greeks call Northern Epirus (see fig. 1). Estimates of the size of the Greek population in 1989 varied from 59,000, or 1 percent of the total (from the official Albanian census) to 266,800, or 8 percent (from data published by the United States government) to as high as 400,000, or 12 percent (from the "Epirot lobby" of Greeks with family roots in Albania). Greeks were harshly affected by the communist regime's attempts to homogenize the population through restrictions on the religious, cultural, educational, and linguistic rights of minorities. Internal exile and other population movements served as instruments of policy to dilute concentrations of Greeks and to deprive Greeks of their status as a recognized minority. Despite improvements in Greco-Albanian relations during the late 1980s and a significant increase in cross-border visits, reports of persecution, harassment, and discrimination against Greeks, as well as other minorities, persisted.

Smaller ethnic groups, including Bulgarians, Gypsies, Jews, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Vlachs, altogether accounted for about 2 percent of the total population. Persons of Macedonian and Bulgarian origin lived mostly in the border area near Lake Prespa. The Vlachs, akin to modern Romanians, were most numerous in the Pindus Mountains and in the districts of Fier, Korēė, and Vlorė. A few persons of Serbian and Montenegrin derivation resided around the city of Shkodėr. There were small Jewish communities in Tiranė, Vlorė, and Korēė and Gypsies were scattered throughout the country.

Data as of April 1992