Tirana was founded as a city in 1614 by the Ottoman Albanian general Sylejman Pasha Bargjini and flourished by then around the Old Mosque and the türbe. The area that today corresponds to the city’s territory has been continuously inhabited since the Iron Age. It was inhabited by Illyrians, and was most likely the core of the Illyrian Kingdom of the Taulantii, which in Classical Antiquity was centred in the hinterland of Epidamnus. Following the Illyrian Wars it was annexed by Rome and became an integral part of the Roman Empire. The heritage of that period is still evident and represented by the Mosaics of Tirana. Later, in the 5th and 6th centuries, an Early Christian basilica was built around this site. The name Tirana might be a borrowing from doric Tursanoi, reflecting the Tyrrhenians, as tosk is another ethnonym derived from tyrrhenians^[12]

After the Roman Empire split into East and West in the 4th century, its successor the Byzantine Empire took control over most of Albania, and built the Petrelë Castle in the reign of Justinian I. The city was fairly unimportant until the 20th century, when the Congress of Lushnjë proclaimed it as Albania’s capital, after the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912.

Classified as a gamma-world-city, Tirana is the most important economic, financial, political and trade centre in Albania due to its significant location in the centre of the country and its modern air, maritime, rail and road transportation.^[13] It is the seat of power of the Government of Albania, with the official residences of the President and Prime Minister of Albania, and the Parliament of Albania. The city was announced as the European Youth Capital for 2022.