Lezhe

Lezhe is an ancient city in northern Albania, seat of Lezhe County and Municipality, among Albania's oldest continuously inhabited cities with roughly 2,400 years of documented history. Settled in the fourth century BC with typical Illyrian fortifications, it served as a major center of the Illyrian kingdom under the Ardiaean and Labeatan dynasties, briefly fell under Macedonian control in 211 BC, and hosted the League of Lezhe in 1444, where Skanderbeg united Albanian lords against Ottoman rule. The 2023 census recorded 51,354 residents in the municipality and 14,687 in the city proper, up from just 1,084 in 1950 and a peak of 15,510 in 2011. Lezhe Castle's ruins and the site of Skanderbeg's grave, in a former cathedral later converted to a mosque, near the Adriatic coast make the city an important cultural and historical destination.