Kuçovë District () was one of the 36

districts of Albania Districts ( sq, or ) were first and second-level administrative divisions of Albania from 19132000. Their number, size, and status changed over time. From 1991 to 2000, the 36 districts were organized into 12 counties. Pursuant to the 1998 Con ...

, which were dissolved in July 2000 and replaced by 12

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

. It had a population of 35,571 in 2001, and an area of , making it the smallest district of Albania. It is in the centre of the country, and its capital was the former

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Kuçovë Kuçovë ( sq-definite, Kuçova) is a municipality in south-central Albania. It was formed at the 2015 local government reform by the merger of the former municipalities Kozare, Kuçovë, Lumas and Perondi, which all became municipal units. The se ...

(which in 2015 became a sub-unit of the larger municipality of the same name). Its territory is now part of

Berat County Berat County (; sq, Qarku Berat, italic=unset), officially the County of Berat ( sq, Qarku i Beratit, italic=unset), is a county in the Southern Region of the Republic of Albania. It is the ninth largest by area and the ninth most populous of ...

: the municipality of

(partly).

Administrative divisions

The district consists of the following

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

: * Kozare *

Perondi Perondi is a village and a former municipality in Berat County, central Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Kuçovë. The population at the 2011 census was 9,005. General information The municip ...

Note: - urban municipalities in bold

Description

Kuçovë is one of the main centres of the

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

, and the town of Kuçovë was built with

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

assistance in the 1950s. It is of interest to students of communist

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

and planning, although much of the oil infrastructure predates the communist period and was installed by the

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

during the Zogist period. Today all of the oil wells are functioning, and in some places oil seeps to the surface. Kuçovë has had the largest Oil reserves in Albania and there is currently a lot of Oil unexplored. The Communist regime build Kuçovë into an industrial city, among the most industrialized in the country, but the current regime, just takes the Oil produced there and doesn't invest any money in its infrastructure. The town has suffered very badly during the

post-communist Post-communism is the period of political and economic transformation or transition in former communist states located in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and Asia in which new governments aimed to create free market-oriented capitalist economi ...

period, and there are many abandoned

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

and

power plant A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an el ...

s in and around the town, and it is visibly poorer than the neighbouring towns such as

Berat Berat (; sq-definite, Berati) is the ninth most populous city of Albania and the seat of Berat County and Berat Municipality. By air, it is north of Gjirokastër, west of Korçë, south of Tirana, and east of Fier. Berat is located in ...

. There is little to interest the casual

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

, and facilities for the visitor are poor even by local standards - tourists would be better advised to explore Kucove from Berat. Kuçovë was formerly a closed

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

, and the airbase at Kuçovë remains one of the largest in Albania and aged

MiG Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (russian: Российская самолётостроительная корпорация „МиГ“, Rossiyskaya samolyotostroitel'naya korporatsiya "MiG"), commonly known as Mikoyan and MiG, was a Russi ...

fighters Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to: Combat and warfare * Combatant, an individual legally entitled to engage in hostilities during an international armed conflict * Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed to destroy or damage enemy warplan ...

of 1950s vintage could be seen flying on a regular basis until they were finally grounded in late 2005.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kucove District Districts of Albania Geography of Berat County