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Europe · High and late Middle Ages

Principality of Valona

drawn on the map 1333–1374

An Albanian coastal principality centered on Valona (Vlorë) and the fortress of Kanina, in southern Albania. It emerged in the 14th century amid the fragmentation of the Serbian empire; it was held for a time by the Serbian-descended Balsha family and later by others.

Shown on the map
1333–1374
Peak area
582 km²
Region
Europe

Overview

An Albanian coastal principality centered on Valona (Vlorë) and the fortress of Kanina, in southern Albania. It emerged in the 14th century amid the fragmentation of the Serbian empire; it was held for a time by the Serbian-descended Balsha family and later by others. Small and strategically exposed on the Adriatic-Ionian coast, it was absorbed into the Ottoman advance in Albania in the later 14th–15th centuries. (The task's two "Valona" entries refer to the same coastal lordship under its slightly varying titles.)

Common questions

What was the Principality of Valona?
An Albanian coastal principality centered on Valona (Vlorë) and the fortress of Kanina, in southern Albania. It emerged in the 14th century amid the fragmentation of the Serbian empire; it was held for a time by the Serbian-descended Balsha family and later by others.
When is the Principality of Valona shown on the map?
The border data draws the Principality of Valona 1333–1374. The source samples borders at fixed dates, so a span can begin late or run on past the end.
How large was the Principality of Valona?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Principality of Valona covered about 1,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each polity as the primary basis, cross-checked against Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia and the scholarship of Donald Queller, Thomas Madden and Jonathan Harris on the Fourth Crusade, whose post-conspiracy reading of 1204 this document follows. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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