Medieval Latin name of the country called by its inhabitants Shqipëri (literally "land of eagles," from shqiponje "eagle"), from Medieval Greek Albania, possibly from a pre-IE word *alb "hill" (also proposed as the source of Alps) or from the PIE root *albho- "white" (see alb). Roman Albania was a land by the Caspian Sea (modern Daghestan); in English Albania was occasionally also a name for Scotland.
Republic in southeastern Europe on the Adriatic Sea coast of the Balkan Peninsula, bordered by Yugoslavia to the northwest, north, and northeast, Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the southeast and south. Tirana is its capital and largest city.
Note: The most secretive and closed of the former Eastern Bloc nations, Albania held free elections in March 1991, ending almost fifty years of communist rule and inaugurating a multiparty system. Protests over the collapse of a government-sponsored fraudulent investment scheme led to near anarchy in 1997. United Nations peacekeepers restored order.