Just some nice Albanian statistics... for a change

Albanian traditional hat (plis/qeleshe) maker

Forget the drugs, unemployment and poverty. I thought I would share some sweet figures about Albania. These are figures concerning demographics and society - the kind of figures that really count.

Number 1: Ethnicity - In Albania, 82.58% of the population is ethnic Albanian (data from 2011 census). Ethnic Albanians constituted 98% of the population in 1989, but then migration happened. I'm sure this can be fixed one day.The numbers remain on our side yet, knock on wood. 1% are ethnic minorities, like Greeks, Romani, Vlach, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, and Egyptian), 15.5% are unspecified - What are these? Can it be that so many Italian retirees have migrated here? Also, the real numbers of the Greek minority are highly disputable, as many are not Greek at all.

2) 98.8% of the population speaks Albanian. The higher number of speakers than the actual ethnic Albanian population shows minorities are close to fully integrated into the host culture, as the it should be.

3) 41.06% of the people are of the 25-54 age group. Median age is 35.4 years old (January 2018). The population growth rate is 0.31%. By following western trends, our population is aging and not really increasing, but this again is fixable. The population living in urban areas is 60.3%. This is actually sad, but still fixable. The countryside is always out there, welcoming the willing.

4) The cities with the highest birthrates per woman are Kukës 2.29 and Durrës at 2.17. Shtëpi pushke, we say in Albania ("gun house", as in the house with many children also has many warriors protecting it). The lowest is Vlora at 1.21. O Labëria, ça bëni, vlla? (Labëria is the south-western and southern part of Albania, and I'm inquiring what's up with the low birthrates, in that dialect of Albanian.)

5) Life expectancy as of 2018 is 77.4 years for men and 80.5 for women. Compared to the rest of the world, our women are fair and do not complain too much of the privilege nature has shown them.

6) The literacy rate is at 97.6%, among the highest in the world. North Korea is at 100%, but we are not communist anymore, by the grace of God.

7) As of 2019, there were 2.862.427 Albanians living in the country, decreasing by 0.3% since January 2018. If international data is correct, the total Albanian tribe worldwide is at about 7,361,870 - 24,442,540 (the number depending on correctness of data regarding Albanians living in Turkey especially, Greece, the Netherlands and other countries.
Unless otherwise noted, data is from 2016-2017.