Vlore Vlora is proclaimed a hero city. It is an old city, where important events in the struggles for freedom and independence have taken place. In ancient times the city was known under the name of Aulon. At the beginning it was only a port. Aulon was famous for its olive groves and vineyards. After the fall of Apollonia and Orichum, it became the principal port of Illyria. In the fifth century Aulon was the centre of diocese. The emigrations of barbarians damaged it badly and brought the withdrawal of the city deeper in land. During the Middle Ages the city was fused into one with the fortress of Kanina, which is situated a few kilometres to the south east. In 1081 Vlora was seized by the Normans and the German Hohenstaufens, and in 1272 incorporated into the kingdom of Arberia. In the fourteenth century, Byzantine armies visited it again, the Serbs as well as the feudal lords of the Balshas from north Albania. At the fourteenth century, as it has passed to the Balshas, it became an important trading and handicraft centre noted apart from wines and salt, for its swords, its ships and its silk. The invading Turks took it in 1417, and Sultan Sulejman - The Magnificent - built a fortress by the sea in 1531, which is believed to have been designed by the Albanian architect - Sinan. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Vlora had again become an important economic centre and port. it was taken by Ali Pasha Tepelena in 1812. It was in Vlora that an Assembly was convened, which proclaimed Albania as an independent state, forming the first national government headed by Ismail Qemali on the 28th of November, 1912. At this time Vlora became the capital of the country. The government remained there until January, l914. Vlora was occupied by the Italian troops in 1914 during the first World War, but they were driven from the main land in 1920, by a volunteer army. Reoccupied by Italians in 1939, and by the Germans in 1943. Vlora was liberated in October l5, l944. Today Vlora has a population of 61,300. Vlora is Albania's second largest port, it is also a fishing port and holiday resort.
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