page_title: Berat
section_title: Modern
hierarchical_section_title: Berat / History / Modern
caption_attribution_description: English: Berat in 1813
context_page_description: Berat, is the ninth largest city by population of the Republic of Albania. The city is the capital of the surrounding Berat County, one of 12 constituent counties of the country. By air, it is 71 kilometres north of Gjirokastër, 70 kilometres west of Korçë, 70 kilometres south of Tirana and 33 kilometres east of Fier.
  Berat is located in the south of the country, 120 km south of Tirana. It is surrounded by mountains and hills including Tomorr on the east that was declared a national park. The river Osum runs through the city before it empties into the Seman within the Myzeqe Plain. The municipality of Berat was formed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Berat, Otllak, Roshnik, Sinjë and Velabisht, that became municipal units. The seat of the municipality is the city Berat. The total population is 60,031, in a total area of 380.21 km². The population of the former municipality at the 2011 census was 32,606.
  Berat, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, comprises a unique style of architecture with influences from several civilizations that have managed to coexist for centuries throughout the history.
context_section_description: During the early period of Ottoman rule, Berat fell into severe decline. By the end of the 16th century it had only 710 houses. However, it began to recover by the 17th century and became a major craft centre specializing in wood carving.
  During the first part of the sixteenth century, Berat was a Christian city and did not contain any Muslim households. The urban population of this period (1506-1583) increased little with the addition of 17 houses. Following their expulsion and arrival from Spain, a Jewish community existed in Berat that consisted of 25 families between 1519–1520.
  Toward the latter part of the sixteenth century, Berat contained 461 Muslim houses and another 187 belonged to newcomers from the surrounding villages of Gjeqar, Gjerbës, Tozhar, Fratar and Dobronik. Conversion to Islam of the local urban population in Berat had increased during this time and part of the newcomer population were also Muslim converts who had Islamic names and Christian surnames. Factors such as tax exemptions for Muslim urban craftsmen in exchange for military service drove many of the incoming rural first generation Muslim population to Berat. Followers of Sabbatai Zevi existed in Berat among Jews during the mid sixteenth century. The Berat Jewish community took an active role in the welfare of other Jews such as managing to attain the release of war related captives present in Durrës in 1596.
  From 1670 onward, Berat became a Muslim majority city and of its 30 neighbourhoods, 19 were populated by Muslims. Factors attributed to the change of the urban religious composition in Berat was pressure to covert in some neighbourhoods and a lack of Christian priests being able to provide religious services. By the early seventeenth century, urban life in Berat started to resemble Ottoman and Muslim patterns.
  In the 18th century, Berat was one of the most important Albanian cities during the Ottoman period. In the early modern era the city was the capital of the Pashalik of Berat founded by Ahmet Kurt Pasha. Berat was incorporated in the Pashalik of Yanina after Ibrahim Pasha of Berat was defeated by Ali Pasha in 1809. In 1867, Berat became a sanjak in Yannina (Yanya) vilayet. Berat had replaced a declining Vlorë as centre of the sanjak (province) in the nineteenth century. The sanjak of Berat and the city itself were under the dominance of the Albanian Vrioni family. The Jewish community of Yanina  renewed the Jewish community of Berat in the nineteenth century.
  A Greek school was operating in the city already from 1835. In the late Ottoman period, the population of Berat was 10-15,000 inhabitants with Orthodox Christians numbering some 5,000 people of whom 3,000 spoke the Aromanian language and the rest the Albanian language. During the 19th century, Berat played an important part in the Albanian national revival. Christian merchants in Berat supported the Albanian movement. Berat became a major base of support for the League of Prizren, the late 19th century Albanian nationalist alliance, while the city was also represented in the formation of southern branch of the league in Gjirokastër. In the First World War, a census by Austro-Hungarian occupation forces counted 6745 Orthodox Christians and 20,919 Muslims in the Berat region.
  During the Second World War, Jews were concealed in the homes and basements of 60 families from the Muslim and Christian communities in Berat. From 23 to 30 October 1944, the second session of the Council of National Liberation of Albania was held in Berat, where the National Liberation Movement-controlled Anti-Fascist National Liberation Committee became the Provisional Democratic Government of Albania, with Enver Hoxha as its prime minister and minister of defence.
  In the modern period, a Romani community numbering 200-300 lives in Berat and its outskirts whereas others in a few nearby villages, at times living in difficult economic circumstances with some seasonally migrating to Greece for work. There are Greek and Aromanian speakers in the city and in settlements close by.
caption: The city of Berat in 1813, illustration by Charles Cockerelle
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